Horsehair+Worms+(Phylum+Nematomorpha)+Zoe+and+Morgan

Horsehair Worms (Phylum Nematomorpha) ===//The only way one could prevent the horse hair worms is getting a liner or filter to go around the water that the worms come to. This will stop the laying of the egg process and would not allow the worms to grow in and around the waters. //=== ===//The worm does not infect humans, it only infects insects and bugs like grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches ect. //=== ===//Adult worms of both sexes are free-living and do not feed. They live for over 6 months in ponds, mud or moist earth. However, juveniles or immature stages are internal parasites of many insects. //=== ===//Both male and female adult worms mate in the freshwater and damp soil. The female lays up to several million eggs in fresh water in long strings or slender broken cords that wrap around water plants. Eggs hatch in two weeks to three months, with the 0.01-inch larvae not resembling the adults. Some believe that within 24 hours after hatching, the larvae encyst on vegetation near the water's edge. After the water level drops, the exposed vegetation is eaten by a grasshopper or cricket. The cyst covering dissolves, permitting juvenile worms to bore through the gut wall and into the body cavity of the host. All nutrients are absorbed across the body wall of the worm, as no alimentary system is present. //=== ===//As larvae develop fully or nearly so (several weeks or months), they break through the body wall of the host (in moist habitats) and become free-living. Other people believe that young worm larvae bore into or are swallowed by immature stages of water-inhabiting insects such as mayflies, dragonflies or beetles. When the pest host emerges from the water as a free-flying adult, the mature horsehair worm breaks out of the body cavity. Grasshoppers or crickets may be a second host if they eat the dead, infested mayfly adults. It appeares cavity // //that the pest host must first come in contact with water to enable horsehair worms to escape the body. // === === // symptoms: crickets start going crazy and chirping and walking weird. // === === //This is what the worms look like. They are found anywhere where there is damp soil. // === === // Another picture of what it looks like a horsehair worm coing out of an insect. // ===

[] []