Quote:
Originally Posted by Kritters  Kam,
That looks a lot like a video I have seen of parasitic worms leaving their host (leismaniasis, maybe? don't remember) they were in a cricket at the edge of the pool and the cricket jumped into the pool in suicide.
Kritts |
Hey Kritts,
I am trying to get caught up with all of the posts today, but wanted to comment on what you said here. There is a chance I guess that it was something else you were talking about, but I am fairly positive it was the "horsehair worm".
I would like to tell what happened once again with the Professor of Parasitology, if you all don't mind. I am not by any means suggesting that this is all of our problem....only that it definitly could be a part of it. I too KNOW that a fly, or flies, is involved in this disease.
He had the specimen in a jar of formaldehyde, when I walked into his lab that day. He was very perplexed, to say the least. He said it wasn't supposed to be, but.....he thought it was a horsehair worm. He knew they weren't supposed to parasitize humans, BUT, he DID have in preserved for me, and wanted me to take it to NIH, where I was supposed to be going for research on a possible parasitical infection. I was later told that I didn't qualify for the study because I had not traveled out of the country.
He also said that he had found them in almost EVERY SINGLE scab that he had analized.....once again I will tell you all that he said I had the most "intriguing samples" that he had ever seen. He has been a professor, at that time which is over two years ago, for 40 years.
He was very curious as to whether they had "mutated" into a human parasite!!!!
Anywho....here are a couple of links that I hope you all will read. I hope especially that Jo will look at the articles.
xoxoxo
Niecy
Horsehair Worms, HYG-2112-98 HORSEHAIR WORMS
horsehair worm
Horsehair or gordian worms are long, slender worms related to nematodes. They get their name because of the mistaken belief that they originated from the long thin hairs of a horse's tail or mane that have fallen into a horse trough. When they are immature, they are parasites of insects, arthropods, and other invertebrate animals. As adults, they are free- living. They are harmless to people in all stages of their lives.
Identification
Horsehair worms are long, measuring from several inches to over 14 inches. They are quite thin, ranging from 1/25 inch to 1/16 inch wide (1 mm to 1.5 mm) and are uniform in diameter from front to back. They vary greatly in color from whitish to yellow/tan to brown/black. Horsehair worms are found on the ground or on plants, especially near water.
Biology
Horsehair worms mate during spring, early summer or fall. Males coil around females in pools of fresh water or damp soil. It is not uncommon for a number of individuals to be intertwined, forming a loose ball during mating. Eggs are laid in a long, gelatinous string in fresh water.
Once they hatch, immature horsehair worms attempt to infect a host. They are known to attack a wide variety of insects and related animals, such as grasshoppers,
crickets, cockroaches,
beetles, and
katydids, as well as dragonflies,
caddisflies,
millipedes,
centipedes,
spiders, crustaceans, leaches, snails, slugs, and other invertebrates.
It is not clear how immature horsehair worms infect hosts. Some researchers believe that they
encyst (to become enclosed inside a cyst) on vegetation near water and are ingested by a host.(I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT THIS MAKES ME THINK OF THE CROWN GALL) The cyst breaks down and the larva penetrates through the intestinal wall and into the body cavity.
Other investigators believe that the larvae opportunistically penetrate the body wall of any arthropod or invertebrate that they encounter.!!!!!
While they parasitize their host, they store up fats and food reserves. When the horsehair worm is mature and near water or damp soil, it emerges from its host. This emergence usually kills the insect (or other invertebrate host). Once emerged, adults are free-living and do not feed.
Horsehair worms are often seen in puddles of water and other pools of fresh water, swimming pools, water tanks and as well as on plants. They are especially common after a rainfall. Horsehair worms may even be found inside homes in toilets. This can cause considerable concern as people often worry that they may have found some type of human parasite.
Control
Horsehair worms are harmless to people, pets, and plants. In fact, they should be considered beneficial because they can be effective in controlling certain insects. Horsehair worms are nothing more than a curiosity. No control is necessary.
Nematomorpha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nematomorpha
Nectonematoida
Gordioidea
Nematomorpha (sometimes called Gordiacea, and commonly known as Horsehair worms or Gordian worms) are a phylum of parasitic animals which are morphologically and ecologically similar to nematode worms, hence the name. They range in size from 1cm to 1 meter long, and 1 to 3 millimetres in diameter. Horsehair worms can be discovered in damp areas such as watering troughs, streams, puddles, and cisterns. The adult worms are free living, but the larvae are parasitic on beetles, cockroaches, grasshoppers and crustaceans. About 320 species have been described.
Nematomorphs possess an external cuticle without cilia. Internally, they have only longitudinal muscle and a non-functional gut, with no excretory, respiratory or circulatory systems. Reproductively, they are dioecious, with the internal fertilization of eggs that are then laid in gelatinous strings. The larvae that hatch have rings of cuticular hooks and terminal stylets that are believed to be used to enter the hosts. They are mostly free living but males and females aggregate into tight balls (Gordian knots) during mating.[1][2]
Nematomorphs can be confused with nematodes, particularly Mermithid worms. Unlike Nematomorphs, Mermithids do not have a terminal cloaca. Male mermithids have one or two spicules just before the end apart from having a thinner, smoother cuticle, without areoles and a paler brown colour.[3]
Spinochordodes tellinii and its katydid host
In Spinochordodes tellinii, which has grasshoppers as its vector,
the infection acts on the grasshopper's brain (I also wonder if that could be, if they have mutated, like our "brain-fog)and causes it to seek water and drown itself, thus returning the nematomorph to water.[1] They are also remarkably able to survive the predation of their host, being able to wriggle out of the predator which has eaten the host cricket.[4]
The phylum is placed along with the Ecydosoa clade of moulting organisms that include the Arthropoda. Fossilized worms have been reported from Early Cretaceous Burmese amber dated to 100-110 million years apart from a fossil from the Mesozoic.[5]
Relationships within the phylum are still somewhat unclear, but two classes are recognised:
* Class Nectonematoida: Marine, planktonic, with a double row of natotory setae along each side of the body; with dorsal and ventral longitudinal epidermal cords, blastocoelom spacious and fluid filled; gonads single; larvae parasitise decapod crustaceans
* Class Gordioidea: Freshwater and semiterrestrial; lack lateral rows of setae; with a single, ventral epidermal cord; blastocoelom filled with mesenchyme in young animals but becomes spacious in older individuals; larvae parasitise grasshoppers and crickets
[edit] References
1. ^ a b Thomas, F.; Schmidt-Rhaesa, A., Martin, G., Manu, C., Durand, P., and Renaud, F. (May 2002). "Do hairworms (Nematomorpha) manipulate the water seeking behaviour of their terrestrial hosts?". J. Evol. Biol. 15 (3): 356–361. doi:10.1046/j.1420-9101.2002.00410.x. ISSN 1010-061X,
http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3gwynne/BIO418/Nemato.pdf. — according to Thomas et al., the "infected insects may first display an erratic behaviour which brings them sooner or later close to a stream and then a behavioural change that makes them enter the water", rather than seeking out water over long distances.
2. ^ Schmidt-Rhaesa, Andreas (2002). "Two Dimensions of Biodiversity Research Exemplified by Nematomorpha and Gastrotricha". Integrative and Comparative Biology 42 (3): 633-640. doi:10.1093/icb/42.3.633.
3. ^ Malcolm S. Bryant, Robert D. Adlard & Lester R.G. Cannon 2006. Gordian Worms: Factsheet. Queensland Museum. [1]
4. ^ Ponton, Fleur; Camille Lebarbenchon, Thierry Lefèvre, David G. Biron, David Duneau, David P. Hughes, and Frédéric Thomas (April 2006). "Parasitology: Parasite survives predation on its host". Nature 440 (7085): 756. doi:10.1038/440756a.
5. ^ Poinar, George; Buckley Ron (2006) Nematode (Nematoda: Mermithidae) and hairworm (Nematomorpha: Chordodidae) parasites in Early Cretaceous amber. Journal of invertebrate pathology 93(1):36-41
[edit] External links
* The cricket suicide (video)
* Videos of a cricket infected with a Gordian worm with the worm emerging to mate, as well as emerging from predators which have eaten the infected cricket. From Nature, April 2006.
* YouTube video of worms crawling out of a crushed grasshopper.
* horsehair worms on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures Web site
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematomorpha"
Categories: Parasitic animals | Psuedocoelomates
E614H
Revised 11/99