Early Access: Hairworms! (Patreon)
Content
If you’re out on a hike and look down at a puddle, you might spot a long, brown spaghetti-shaped creature whipping around madly in a figure eight.
It’s a hairworm – also known as a horsehair worm or Gordian worm. Good news: It isn’t interested in infecting or attacking humans. But if you had happened on the puddle a few hours earlier, you might have witnessed a gruesome spectacle – the hairworm wriggling out of a cricket’s body, pushing its way out like the baby monster in the movie “Alien.”
How a hairworm ends up in a puddle, or another water source such as a stream, hot tub or a pet’s water dish, is a complex story. A young hairworm finds its way into a cricket or similar insect like a beetle or grasshopper, and once it’s grown into an adult, the parasite takes over its host’s brain to hitch a ride to the water.
We hope you enjoy this first look at our newest episode. You can start sharing it with other science fans on Tuesday, February 12 from YouTube. Thanks!