A night crawler is a large earthworm that comes out of the ground at night to search for food and moisture. These worms can grow as long as your hand, and they earned their name because they crawl across lawns and sidewalks after dark, especially on damp evenings after rain.

During the day, night crawlers stay deep underground in their burrows, where the soil stays cool and moist. When darkness falls and the air gets humid, they emerge to feed on dead leaves and organic matter on the surface. If you've ever walked barefoot across a lawn early in the morning and felt something squishy, you might have stepped on a night crawler that hadn't returned underground yet.

These earthworms are prized by people who fish because their size makes them excellent bait. On summer evenings, you might see people with flashlights carefully walking across grass, quickly grabbing night crawlers before they can retreat into their holes. The worms are surprisingly quick when they sense danger.

Night crawlers also help gardens and soil by tunneling underground, which lets air and water reach plant roots more easily. Their burrows can extend several feet deep into the earth.