Brain controlling WORM !!

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Yes you heard right .There is a worm commonly called Horse Hair worm which is scientifically called Nematomorpha  which can control the brain of many insects.It is commonly found in damp areas such as watering troughs, swimming pools, streams, puddles, and cisterns.There are many interesting facts about this worm.
The name “horsehair worm” refers to the old belief that they came from horse hairs that fell into water and came to life.


   The adult worms are free-living, but the larvae need a host for maturation.The larvae parasites on grasshoppers,crickets,cockroaches and some kind of beetles.When they mature they leave the host body to lay eggs.But the reliefing fact is that they are harmless for humans,pets and livestocks.

  They control the brain of insects to reach some places where water is available.This worm will turn the insects into sucidal maniacs!!

   According to parasitologist Ben Hanelt of the University of New Mexico,once the worm larvae find themselves in the insect, “they will penetrate through the gut of the cricket and get into the body cavity, where they then grow from a tiny, tiny larva to something that’s now on the average of a foot long,” he said.Really, the horsehair worm is nothing more than a giant gonad wrapped in a thin sheath of muscles, and I say that with all due reverence. Curiously, they don’t even have a mouth to eat with or chew their way through the cricket, so Hanelt remains unsure how they bore into the body cavity, and then through the exoskeleton to escape and there’s no digestive system as we would recognize it,

  Another interesting fact is that we could not recognize the cricket or any insects which have become the hosts of this worms.They act normally.As we know most of the insects can't swim in water .But when the horse hair worm is inside an insect the insect became a good swimmer! If we bring that insect near water it will immediately jump to the water.As soon as it hits the water the worm will come out of the insect and the worm will start the search for mate.

   How on Earth can the worm hijack a cricket’s brain? 
“First of all,” said Hanelt, “the worm appears to be producing large amounts of neurotransmitters,” chemicals that allow the transmission of signals between neurons. “And the neurotransmitters that it's producing are thought to make the cricket basically act in ways that normally the cricket wouldn't act. And exactly which neurotransmitters these are and how they're affecting the crickets, that we don’t know.” Secondly, it appears the worm triggers the cricket to boost production of neurotransmitters.

  Horsehair worms are harmless to vertebrates, because they can't parasitize people, livestock, pets, or birds. They also don't infect plants. If humans ingest the worms, they may encounter some mild discomfort of the intestinal tract, but infection never occurs.

Life cycle of Horse hair worm




Reference :
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/marine/worms/horsehair-worm


Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

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