Deep Look
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Early Access: Hairworms!
🕑 Added 2019-02-08 23:36:07 +0000 UTCIf you’re out on a hike and look down at a puddle, you might spot a long, brown spaghetti-shaped creature whipping around madly in a figure eight.
It’s a hairworm – also known as a horsehair worm or Gordian worm. Good news: It isn’t interested in infecting or attacking humans. But if you had happened on the puddle a few hours earlier, you might have witnessed a gruesome spectacle – the hairworm wriggling out of a cricket’s body, pushing its way out like the baby monster in the movie “Alien.”
How a hairworm ends up in a puddle, or another water source such as a stream, hot tub or a pet’s water dish, is a complex story. A young hairworm finds its way into a cricket or similar insect like a beetle or grasshopper, and once it’s grown into an adult, the parasite takes over its host’s brain to hitch a ride to the water.
We hope you enjoy this first look at our newest episode. You can start sharing it with other science fans on Tuesday, February 12 from YouTube. Thanks!
Comments
Deep Look
Hi Bill, Christina Anaya, who is writing her doctoral dissertation on hairworms and crickets at Oklahoma State University, studied 22 female crickets infected with hairworms. All but one cricket survived the infection. Once they're infected with a hairworm, the crickets stop growing and their organs shrink. "They have all their organs," she said. "They’re just smaller." Cheers, Gabriela
Bill Cass
I don't understand how all that worm can be inside a cricket, and sometimes the cricket survives. How can there be any room left inside for functional cricket? Are they really that high percentage of body fat?
Deep Look
Hi Darron, Thanks for your questions! Hairworms do infect other insects besides crickets, such as grasshoppers, beetles and praying mantises. You can find more info at this web site: nematomorpha.net
Darron Perry Jr
Oh noooooo! Does this species infect other insects?I've seen something similar come out of preying mantises and spiders.
