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what the heck? (non fishy)


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#21 Guest_smilingfrog_*

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 07:03 AM

Hi all,
This is my first post so hope everything is set up correctly. I had to relate this story.

Many many years ago, I think I was about 11 or 12, I was down at the local creek looking for minnows, frogs, crayfish, etc... and not having much luck, when I saw this cricket kicking about in the water. There were 2 horsehair worms directly beneath and in contact with it. I netted the group and put the worms into my bucket and tossed the cricket into the grass up on shore. I didn't know much about horsehair worms back then except that they lived in water and were called horsehair worms. I assumed these had swum up to the cricket to feed on it and that I had just saved this cricket from certain doom. Drowning while being devoured alive by worms what a horrible fate. :-(
Anyhow, I went back to my search for aquatic critters, and after several minutes, noticed a cricket kicking about on the surface again. I thought this was a strange coincidence, and netted it out, tossed it up in the grass and resumed my previous activities. Several more minutes went by when a cricket appeared kicking about in the water. By now I'm starting to half wonder if there's someone upstream playing a joke on me and tossing crickets in the creek.
This was too much of a coincidence so I netted the cricket and placed him on the shore next to the water to see what he would do. He promptly hopped back in. I took him out again and set him down again making sure he was facing away from the water when I let go and sure enough he turned around and hopped back in the creek. I had found a suicidal cricket!
I thought to myself "if you're just going to drown yourself anyay, I'm going to feed you to my new horsehair worms that were going to eat you in the first place." I put the cricket in the bucket and headed home. About 20 minutes or so after getting home I went out to take a look at them, and was horrified to discover that I now had a 3rd horsehair worm that was in the process of emerging from this poor cricket who had somehow managed not to drown in all this time. This 3rd worm was much larger than the 2 I had netted. I measured it right at a foot. The other 2 were about 7 or 8 inches.
The image of this foot long worm emerging from the cricket made a bit of an impression on me and I remembered it for a long time.
Then one day in a freshman biology class in college, the professor was talking about parasites and mentioned the fact that some parasites can alter the concious behavior of their hosts. He used the example of snails as some snail parasites change the behavior of the snails they inhabit to make them more suceptible to predation by birds, the parasites next host. At the time I was a bit skeptical, thinking that more likely, the snail was just weakened by having a parasite, and had to spend more time feeding etc... and that made it more likely that a bird would find and eat it. Then I remembered my "suicidal" cricket and suddenly his actions made sense.

TW
Minnesota

#22 Guest_Seedy_*

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 04:37 PM

Great story and 1st post!

Welcome!

#23 Guest_keepnatives_*

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 04:37 PM

Like that alien "chestburster"! I love it!!

Hey there's a good B movie. "Attack of the Threadworms" could rival "Frankenfish".

#24 Guest_Kanus_*

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Posted 16 December 2007 - 09:03 PM

Interesting fact tied into the "changing host behavior" thing. At least one species of the Acanthocephalans (the Spiny-Headed Worms) infect Gammarus amphipods as juveniles and reverse their phototaxis so that instead of hiding in the dark leaf litter of the stream bottom, they swim to the surface (in addition to this, they also turn the amphipod a very visible orange color) where they are readily seen and eaten by their definitive host, the Green Sunfish. These worms live in the intestines of the sunfish until they start poopin out planktonic, amphipod-tasty eggs.

#25 Guest_truf_*

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Posted 17 December 2007 - 01:58 AM

I wonder what mechanism these types of parasites use to control their host. Does anyone here know? Could it be replicated in higher animals? It would make an interesting study.
-Thom

#26 Michael Wolfe

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Posted 17 December 2007 - 11:09 AM

Yes, it can work in higher animals... I went camping with Martin years ago and infected him with a parasite that is designed to cause him to predict doom and stir up trouble (sort of self sulfilling prophesies that way isn't it?)... any way y'all would never know that Martin is really just a Sci-Fi reading, Michael Hedges playin, sit by the camp fire, laid back individual, it just the parasites that casue him to be Irate...

I wonder what mechanism these types of parasites use to control their host. Does anyone here know? Could it be replicated in higher animals? It would make an interesting study.
-Thom


Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

#27 Guest_wegl2001_*

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Posted 17 December 2007 - 01:08 PM

Yes, it can work in higher animals... I went camping with Martin years ago and infected him with a parasite that is designed to cause him to predict doom and stir up trouble (sort of self sulfilling prophesies that way isn't it?)... any way y'all would never know that Martin is really just a Sci-Fi reading, Michael Hedges playin, sit by the camp fire, laid back individual, it just the parasites that casue him to be Irate...

Wait a minute...The guy said "higher animals". This pretty much disqualifies Martin... :D

#28 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 01:10 AM

All right, you Weissenheimers.

Besides, if I could play half as well as Michael Hedges I'd retire from my day job! It still amazes me how many NANFA members know about him. Anywhere else I get blank looks.

#29 Guest_tglassburner_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 08:01 AM

All right, you Weissenheimers.

Besides, if I could play half as well as Michael Hedges I'd retire from my day job! It still amazes me how many NANFA members know about him. Anywhere else I get blank looks.

Who is Michael Hedges?

#30 Michael Wolfe

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 11:03 AM

Well, done David... I'll stand 'em up, you knowck 'em down...

Tom, the short andwer is that Michael Hedges is a guitarist (not a guitar player) of high quality... and when you are close enough to a stream and under the right stars with a little bit of lantern light in your eyes... our very own Martin does a rather talented interpretation. (Google him and check out the YouTube).

Wait a minute...The guy said "higher animals". This pretty much disqualifies Martin... :D


Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

#31 Guest_tglassburner_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 11:48 AM

Well, done David... I'll stand 'em up, you knowck 'em down...

Tom, the short andwer is that Michael Hedges is a guitarist (not a guitar player) of high quality... and when you are close enough to a stream and under the right stars with a little bit of lantern light in your eyes... our very own Martin does a rather talented interpretation. (Google him and check out the YouTube).


Done! Martin needs to come to Ohio, I got some guitars.

#32 Guest_Mysteryman_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 12:18 PM

I can't quite recall what it was just now, but I'm pretty sure it's a fluke that lives in rabbits that I read about recently. This fluke's eggs get dropped on the ground with the rabbit droppings, and ants eat those droppings, or portions thereof, and get infected with fluke eggs. The fluke larva then makes it's way to the ant's brain after a time, and controls the ant to grasp onto the tip of a drooping blade of grass and stay there, where a passing rabbit will eventually eat it, allowing it to infect a new rabbit.

Really amazing.

I hate parasites. Some people love them and find them utterly fascinating, but I hate them.

#33 Guest_tglassburner_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 12:30 PM

I hate parasites. Some people love them and find them utterly fascinating, but I hate them.


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#34 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 08:04 PM

Done! Martin needs to come to Ohio, I got some guitars.


Hot damn, waddya got?

#35 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 08:16 PM

.. and when you are close enough to a stream and under the right stars with a little bit of lantern light in your eyes...




...and with a sufficiently high blood alcohol content :D

Really, Michael, you're very kind.

As for David, I live pretty close to him. And I'm coming for his fish.

Lessee, this was about parasites, yes? I took a course in parasitology in college - it was my favorite. We principally studied human parasites - my prof had done a lot of work with schistosomes. I find the various lifecycles of trematodes in general to be fascinating. What unusual ways they have of propagating themselves.

#36 Guest_tglassburner_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 09:22 PM

Hot damn, waddya got?

Everything but a 12 string electric. Assorted makes and models. When you coming to play?

#37 Guest_Brooklamprey_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 09:40 PM

I hate parasites. Some people love them and find them utterly fascinating, but I hate them.


I 've never met a parasitic animal I could hate... Just find them too damn cool and interesting.

Well except for some parasitic people...... some of those really suck.

#38 Guest_Seedy_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 10:00 PM

I 've never met a parasitic animal I could hate... Just find them too damn cool and interesting.


Ok...I really think parasites are cool stuff...but I wouldn't go that far. Parasites are still killing and maiming in large parts of Africa and other Developing areas.

Can you really not hate:

Mosquito's (getting rid of them would also get rid of malaria and the parasitic form of elephantitis)
Schistosomes?

#39 Guest_Brooklamprey_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 10:14 PM

Ok...I really think parasites are cool stuff...but I wouldn't go that far. Parasites are still killing and maiming in large parts of Africa and other Developing areas.

Can you really not hate:

Mosquito's (getting rid of them would also get rid of malaria and the parasitic form of elephantitis)
Schistosomes?


Keep in mind riding the world of Mosquitoes would likely cause the extinction of many species of animals. These little blood suckers are a serious diet component of many animals.

They are doing just as eons of evolution has designed them to do..(as have their associated parasites such as Malaria) I can not fault them for that. Does not mean that killing them is a bad idea but what they do does not preclude them from being interesting and yes even capable of being "liked".

#40 Guest_Seedy_*

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Posted 18 December 2007 - 10:20 PM

Does not mean that killing them is a bad idea but what they do does not preclude them from being interesting and yes even capable of being "liked".


Ok, I'll agree to that... :)




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