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what the heck? (non fishy)

Started by Guest_butch_* , Dec 11 2007 09:14 PM

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44 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_butch_*

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 09:14 PM

Few years ago when I was young kid, I used to go to Crow Wing Lake in Brainerd, Minneosta, for fishing and collecting some native fishes. I live by Mississippi River. Anyways I once caught some weird looking worm, swimming in Crow Wing Lake and I have no idea what it is. Its about 3 to 4 inch long but really skinny like thread or hair. I thought it was just some thread but it was moving. I kept it with my native fishes for few months since the fishes aint in interest for eating that worm. But sadly I put tadpole madtom in same tank of mystery worm in, the madtom ate it. (Stupid me)

Anyways what was that threadlike worm?

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#2 Guest_daveneely_*

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 09:38 PM

Anyways what was that threadlike worm?

google horsehair worm... look familiar?

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#3 Guest_Skipjack_*

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 09:49 PM

Once when I was younger, I found a wolf spider with a hugely swollen abdomen. Out of curiosity, I opened it up. Inside was a tangled up horsehair worm. After ten minutes of unraveling, it was around twelve inches long. Freaky critters!

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#4 Guest_butch_*

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 10:12 PM

Yeah that's what it is, the horsehair worm. I researched it and turn it out that adults only lived for few weeks. I tried feed it but don't know what they eat but then I found out that the adults don't feed. They were look cool in my community aquarium with my native fishes (bigmouth shiners, mud darters, one deformed fathead, one 4inch fathead, finescale x southern red bellied hybrid daces, finescale daces and a tadpole madtom). That was what the fishes I kept with my horsehair worm long time ago in 55gal.
Too bad I don't see the horsehair worms very often in wild.

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#5 Guest_Seedy_*

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 10:22 PM

These things are super cool parasites! Certain species are parasitic of certain insects like crickets... they actually modify their hosts behavior to cause their host to seek out water where they hatch forth to spawn in the stream and begin the process again...

Here's some related ones infecting some ghost shrimp:

Posted Image

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#6 Guest_butch_*

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 10:44 PM

Well I think the horsehair worms make interesting additionals to my small native aquarium if I can find any free swimming adults but I won't keep them with gambusia, madtoms and red cherry shrimps.
They are almost harmless to my fishes if the horsehair worms are bigger than the fishes.

Really, I thought that white stuff in ghost shrimp was just white poop or white food that shrimp food but now I know what it is.

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#7 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 11:30 PM

Once when I was younger, I found a wolf spider with a hugely swollen abdomen. Out of curiosity, I opened it up. Inside was a tangled up horsehair worm. After ten minutes of unraveling, it was around twelve inches long. Freaky critters!

You actually did this. Poor spider. And you spent 10 minutes unraveling the worm, for what? To see how long it was??

My own insatiable curiosity has a more philosphical tack. I hated comparative anatomy, whereas, "How big is the Universe?" - now that's something I can sink my teeth into. Compared to spiders' abdomens - Yecchhh! Hat's off to you, Skipjack!

Just seeing those shrimp photos makes me cringe.

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#8 Guest_puchisapo_*

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Posted 11 December 2007 - 11:42 PM

those pics of the ghost shrimp are super cool. that is excellent to get them in such a near-transparent host.

there's a guy in my lab who studies jumping spiders. he had some really cool shots of a horsehair emerging from one of his spiders, but now i can't find it.

we used to find adult free-living horsehairs in puddles around the farm. they got to be more than a foot long.

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#9 Guest_truf_*

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Posted 12 December 2007 - 12:00 AM

Ironic this topic should come up. About 4 years ago my brother & I found a strange wire-like worm in a puddle. It was very rigid and it coiled and tied itself into knots. I kept it in a jar of water for about a month (until I accidentally left it on top of my aquarium light and the water evaporated) I always wondered what it was. Then last week while reading about cave fauna, I stumbled across the answer! A Gordian Worm! (aka Horse Hair Worm). Very alien creatures that take over the brains of cave crickets, grasshoppers etc...and cause them to drown themselves. BODY SNATCHERS! GHOULISH MIND CONTROL! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Sounds like a great "B" movie plot.
-Thom

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#10 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 12 December 2007 - 12:22 AM

he had some really cool shots of a horsehair emerging from one of his spiders, but now i can't find it.

Thank God!

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#11 Guest_viridari_*

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Posted 12 December 2007 - 02:06 PM

There's no telling what could happen if something like that infected a human.

Posted Image

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#12 Guest_Skipjack_*

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Posted 12 December 2007 - 07:17 PM

You actually did this.

Yes actually did, was camping in KY, had just cooked up a pot of wild crayfish, and found the spider. Had you seen how distended its abdomen was, you would have had to have hacked into it also. I am talking an average wolf spider 1.5 inch legspan with a 3/4 inch around abdomen. I had never seen anything like it, and when I cut into it I watched the worm move. So that led to the unraveling. This worm easily outweighed the spider. It was amazing. Like me having a 225 pound tapeworm. How did the wolf spider eat enough prey to keep himself, and the parasite alive? Must have been one heck of a hunter.

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#13 Guest_Brooklamprey_*

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Posted 12 December 2007 - 07:37 PM

These things are super cool parasites!

Holy crap someone stole my catch phrase

I though this was something only I said with regularity.
Sorry off topic but I had to note that...

Those are some great shots of these BTW Seedy..

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#14 Guest_butch_*

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Posted 12 December 2007 - 07:57 PM

Thanks for help me solved this mystery worm. I seen them in ghost shrimps in local pet shop all time and had no idea what was that. Anyone keeping these free swimming adults in aquarium?

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#15 Guest_Skipjack_*

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Posted 12 December 2007 - 08:05 PM

I do not know of anyone intentionally keeping them, but I would not put it past Richard.It might be next on his agenda of bloodsuckers. If anyone has not noticed our own Brooklamprey specializes in parasites. fish, leeches, whatever.

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#16 Guest_Seedy_*

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Posted 14 December 2007 - 07:19 PM

I kept those ghost shrimp in a quarantine tank until the worms hatched...They might have lived for ~week before expiring. Typically with these types of worms, their adult life stage is very short as their only goal (they can't even "eat") is reproduction.

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#17 Guest_fishlvr_*

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Posted 15 December 2007 - 10:27 AM

I kept those ghost shrimp in a quarantine tank until the worms hatched...They might have lived for ~week before expiring. Typically with these types of worms, their adult life stage is very short as their only goal (they can't even "eat") is reproduction.

That last sentence instantly reminded me of lampreys.

I've heard about these worms before. They don't do much damage to the host do they? I thought I read somewhere they were just kind of unsightly, and did basically no harm whatsoever to the host.

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#18 Guest_Seedy_*

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Posted 15 December 2007 - 03:46 PM

That last sentence instantly reminded me of lampreys.

I've heard about these worms before. They don't do much damage to the host do they? I thought I read somewhere they were just kind of unsightly, and did basically no harm whatsoever to the host.

They completely destroy their host when they emerge... they are absolutely fatal. In crickets and other insects, they cause them to drown themselves, then they burst forth.

http://www.google.co...G=Google Search

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#19 Guest_fishlvr_*

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Posted 15 December 2007 - 04:39 PM

They completely destroy their host when they emerge... they are absolutely fatal. In crickets and other insects, they cause them to drown themselves, then they burst forth.

http://www.google.co...G=Google Search

Wow.