[sarothra]

"Nematodes from a ten acre field, if arranged
single file, would form a procession large
enough to reach around the world."

".... every glass of water drunk in many
a city, which uses a slow filter system,
percolates over the bodies of at least a
thousand nematodes."

"It is highly probable that the physiological effect
produced by a change of drinking water when the
usual chemical and bacteriological tests show but
slight differences, may be due to the presence of
nematode excreta, and it is scarcely doubted that
the local flavor of city drinking water is affected by
its nematode content."

If all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable... we should find
its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes, and oceans represented by a film of nematodes… Trees would still stand in ghostly
rows representing our streets and highways. The location of the various plants and animals would still be decipherable, and, had
we sufficient knowledge, in many cases even their species could be determined by an examination of their erstwhile nematode parasites.
Nathan A. Cobb, Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1914

And after even this, we might
give up a ghost of nematodes;
shrug off a shadow of our streets,
cathedrals, boulevards and zoos,
and set adrift our second skin,
our brittle exoskeleton;
and all that will survive of us
is bugs – these bugs – these parasites;
our lung-light cloud sighed out, as if
the dust of all our equations
of physics and astronomy
were swiped from a blackboard and blown
from one quick bang of a chalk-cloth
hard against a new-swept dark.
Antony Dunn
From Bugs (Carcanet OxfordPoets 2009)