Let me describe the situation that I experienced.

I usually keep a few jars near the doorway so that if I find insects
in the house, I deliver them outside
the next day after capturing them in the bottle. Well, a few nights
ago I had maxxed-out on the two
jars since I had a ladybug in one and a jumping spider in the other.
So I went around looking for another
jar and found a sauerkrat jar that I had last used to hold alot of elm
seeds, and there probably was some
leaf or debris from the seeds still in the jar, not much but some
debris about the size of a dime.

Now the trouble was that I had a big wolf spider near the bathroom
passage and so I got the jar there
and a good thing that these wolf spiders are rather lazy and laid back
because I easily managed to
set the jar overhead of the wolf spider. Now the delicate operation of
slowly getting the metal cover to
coax the spider to sort of get into the glass region so that the metal
cover when I turn the jar around
the spider is intact inside. So that went all swell.

Now this all happened about midnight and it would be about 12 hours
later before I set him free outside
the next day. And that I wanted to provide her with some water, or a
drop of some grape juice to carry
her over till the next day. And I dropped about a tablespoon of water
inside the jar for the spider.

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?

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

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

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

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.