Stranger than Fiction!

Today's post is about worms and bugs and a true tale that is stranger than fiction!

The background story:  One of the first things Ken and I did when we bought this property almost 20 years ago was to build a small pond in the back yard. It is tiny but has served as an important oasis for wildlife since its creation. This year the liner sprung a leak and we realized the only thing to do was to drain the pond and start over. It was really a great chance to clean out all the accumulated dust and debris of two decades.





The day after cleaning and re-filling the pond we noticed two seemingly unrelated objects in the water: the first was a dead Jerusalem Cricket - known locally as a Death Baby for some unknown reason -  and the second was a really disgusting looking worm of about 10" - 12" in length. The crickets are quite ugly and appear ferocious when you come across them on the prairie. They are almost transparent which adds to their otherworldly appearance. They are also quite large as you can see from these photos taken on a piece of white paper beside a dime for scale.

 The worm looked like something intestinal  and moved in a disturbingly active way. We removed it from the water and put it out of its misery after making suitable sounds of disgust over its appearance. And so the story ended, we thought. Until the next day when we went out to the pond and found another drowned cricket and another worm! After some intense internet research I discovered that the persistent nematode is a Horsehair Worm. And here is where it gets creepy. They are parasites of - what else? - crickets! But the insidious part is what they do to their host. The worms mate and lay their eggs in water. The eggs get carried to the pond edges where they are consumed by crickets and grasshoppers. Once the worm grows inside the insect it changes the makeup of its host and creates an insatiable desire for water. It basically compels its host to commit suicide by drowning at which point the adult worm bursts out of the insect and goes in search of another worm with which to mate. Now is that better than science fiction, or what?!

 For the first time in my life I actually feel sorry for the Death Babies!

The small node on the end of the worm seems to be used to grab onto things, allowing the rest of the worm to move into position where it pleases.