Juvenile or Immature?

'Juvenile' and 'immature', the terms can be confused. BTW are you confused? There was a question made by one of the faculty members at R.U.to a research scholar during her mid term PhD presentation.

Her work is on tillage, on how tillage affects earthworm population. Her findings were explained in terms of the varying quantity of juvenile and immature forms of earthworm after a certain time in the collection from both the fields placed closer and monitored closely.

More juveniles were found in the plot were tillage occurred. I am not to explain her results. It is her discretion.There is research paper on how tillage effects earthworm population. Go through if you like to.

“Anyways what is the difference between them?’’, as one of the faculty members asked her. She explained it in terms of the scale of their body lengths.  I will try to explain what the basic difference is.

 

David James says Juvenile birds are by definition immature birds, but immature birds are not necessarily juvenile.

Etymologically ‘juvenile’  is an adjective derived from a Latin word juvenilis meaning a young person or of ‘belonging to youth’.

  
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Remember “Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow”, J.M. Berries play. This play is available online. The hero, Peter, was immature because he would never age.

Birds which are not covered with feathers, or unfledged are immature. Mark the word ‘unfledged’ which do not have feathers. So, fledglings that are unfledged are immature.

A sophomore is immature. Sophomore is regarded as self assured and opinionated but crude and immature. ‘Sophomore’ word in Indian context is less used. But those who have read Princess Diaries must know Mia. Mia was a sophomore, a fifteen-year-old tenth grade private school student. So she was immature.

Childish people are immature. So Peter Pan was childish that is why he was immature. Immature people are having the delicacy of youth, they are tender- hearted. And now this word to all of you: You should be like one big happy family, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds. This I am not saying, Bible says.

Still not clear. According to Juvenile Justice Act, a commonly known child law, "juvenile" or "child" means a person who has not completed eighteenth year of age. Recently a juvenile murder  was in news in Bihar, when Mr. Lalu and Mr. Paswan called upon a Bihar Bandh and their supporters destroyed public property mercilessly. What a shame on their part. 

After the boy was found, who was allegedly murdered, people who look for exploiting situations surfaced like earthworms that come out when we tap feet on earth in rainy season. Here we realize that juveniles are also teenage people and immature are also teenage people.

But immature are those people who would not mature into adults and juveniles are those who will mature into adults. 

Similarly earthworm, we know they regenerate when cut into two.They can grow into two,when cut? Wonderful! natural phenomenon. Poor we! 

We don’t grow into two. Neither do they. The part of earthworm’s body which has got clitellum grows and the other which does not have, is worn out. The part when cut must have at least the clitellum and ten body segments to grow into a complete worm.

At one time in earthworm population in any mound, immature and matures are found. But after rains occurred juveniles and semi-matures are found. This happens because matures die after reproduction in august. So, semi-matures are more numerous in September.

The word immature should not have been used in this context. It is vague. Semi-mature is the word instead. Juveniles are smaller than immature. Immature, that is being talked about is earthworm sexually semi mature and juveniles are worms that have hatched from the cocoons. 

Species to species size varies, therefore depth of their burrow also varies. Adults, which scale larger in length, are found at depth in the cross section of the soil taken, when sampling is done. But juvenile and semi-matures are found near the soil cover, not much deeper as in earlier case.

So immature are sexually semi-mature earthworm that are larger than juvenile forms; i.e., those earthworms that have hatched recently from their cocoons.

In rainy season try tapping the earth with your feet. Small earthworms, both juveniles and immatures  will come out after feeling the vibrations!