When I first met Harry I was startled, as many other people before
me have been. These critters look as if they could be a parasitic worm that recently
exited the human body. Did he come from me!? Yikes!
More than one person has been shocked to spot a horsehair
worm squirming in the toilet! They apparently get there after coming in the
house inside a cricket and emerging when the cricket seeks toilet water. These
worms have given people the creepies for ages. It looks eerie… almost
malevolent. (See photo below.)
I also thought that Harry resembled the nasty guinea worm
that infests people in Africa, where it enters a host as a tiny larva, after a
person drinks stagnant water that is infested with these worms. About a year afterwards,
the person experiences a painful, burning sensation as the worm forms a
blister, usually on a leg or foot, and slowly emerges… over a foot long.
As I said, upon seeing Harry, my first shuddering thought was
that he had emerged from me in the tub, the night before. Quickly and
distastefully discarding that theory, I wondered if he could be some kind of
eel or snake—yet he seemed impossibly thin to be either of them.
I often find critters in the tub the morning after a
bath—such as frogs, toads, crickets, beetles, etc.—who need rescuing, lest they
drown. I scoop them out with a sieve and deposit them gently on the ground. I
did the same with Harry (although he wriggled mightily to escape me). Little
did I know that he was probably exactly where he wanted to be, and resented
being removed from his underwater haven.
I assume that Harry eventually found himself another watery
abode for the winter. If so, he’ll go looking for group sex in the spring,
tangling himself up with a few female worms. The females will later deposit
their million or so eggs and then die. Later, the tiny larvae will hatch and
then begin their grim lives, freeloading from another hapless cricket or other
similar insect—killing it in the process. It’s just another of nature’s ways of
carrying on life on our lovely little planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment