GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - Most weird worms I had ever witnessed in the environment

[email protected] · 30-07-2008, 06:15 PM posted to sci.bio.botany

Sean Houtman wrote:
wrote in news:34380848-95fa-40eb-b1fa-
:

Now is when the weird stuff started to begin. For about 10 minutes
after I dropped the water inside there
appeared two large thin worm like creatures that were as long as the
inside circumference of the jar itself
and these two worms were annoying the wolf spider that she wanted to
get away from them.

Anyone have any idea as to what happened here? Are there some species
of worm that sort of hibernate
in elm seed debris and then when water is present they sort of spring
to life and that they are as huge
as the inside of a jar circumference?

When I realized there were two worms in there with the spider, I
thought at first they looked like tapeworms?
Could a spider itself have worms?

Sounds like horsehair worms. They are parasites of insects and other
arthropods. They tend to make their hosts weak, but don't kill them. The
worms will wait until their host comes into contact with water, and then
exit the body because they mate and release their eggs in water.

Sean

Looked it up and indeed that is what I saw. Painful existence for a
cricket or insect with one of them
lodged inside.