Just some time ago, a brave young man was playing in the mountains when he accidentally found a ball of wire in the creek! This made him feel very strange, how could there be barbed wire balls in this inaccessible place?
The young man thought it was very strange, so he decided to find out, and he took a stick, picked the ball of thread out of the water, and placed it on a large rock. After some time, the young man was surprised to find that the wire ball was still moving, which shocked him greatly! He picked up the stick and continued to poke the wire ball, but could not get it to spread out anyway. The young man was intrigued, so he took out his phone to record the wonderful process.
After the video was released, netizens accused the young man of putting this thing back into the water. Some netizens asked him sharply: "Don't you know that this is a parasite?" A parasite that manipulates its host! This issue has attracted the attention and heated discussions of the majority of netizens.
This moving "wire ball" is the legendary wire worm.
Clematodes are dioecious parasites, and the balls of thread that we can see are actually the forms they are mating, and when mating, they will intertwine with each other, and they are called "reproductive balls" in biology
The nematode is a parasite that can move freely when it becomes an adult, but until it reaches adulthood, it will parasitize other animals and survive by absorbing nutrients from its host.
Its most well-known hosts include praying mantis and locusts, but there are also many nematode species that prefer to thrive in fresh water, while others prefer the marine environment, making lobsters one of their home destinations.
As a parasite, the most peculiar thing about the nematode is that it is able to control the behavior of the host, prompting it to actively jump into the water.
Taking the praying mantis as an example, this terrestrial insect usually does not actively approach water sources, and even its daily water needs are mainly met by absorbing rain and dew. For the praying mantis, any source of water can be considered a desperate situation for survival! But the nematode has such magical power, once the praying mantis is infected with the nematode, it will involuntarily look for water sources, and take a belly of nematodes to "commit suicide in the river".
In order to make use of the limited space of the praying mantis as much as possible, the nematodes will be intertwined and folded with each other, and dozens of nematodes will be parasitic in the body of the praying mantis, parasitic in the body of the praying mantis, and there is no need to forage for food by themselves, absolutely lying flat!
But why did the nematode give up such a privileged life and force the praying mantis to commit suicide by diving?
From a scientific point of view, this is because the nematode needs to reproduce the next generation to continue its life.
The life of a nematode goes through three stages: egg, larva and adult. The male and female individuals of the adult worms are what we see as "spaghetti", and they meet in the water and reproduce to produce the next generation. These eggs are ingested by some aquatic insects, and then these small insects are preyed on by terrestrial insects such as praying mantises, forming a perfect parasitic chain.
Do you know that after the praying mantis was parasitized, there was no special change at the beginning, the larvae of the nematode gradually grew up, and began to frantically absorb the nutrients of the mantis, and the praying mantis began to prey frantically at this time, but it still could not resist the absorption of the nematode, almost all the nutrients were deprived of the nematode, when the mantis was almost sucked into a worm dry. The nematode has quietly matured and needs to break free from the mantis in order to complete the last link of its life - reproduction!
Under the control of the nematode, the praying mantis can not control its consciousness at all, and can only rely on instinct to slowly approach the water, once close to the water source, the insect will drill out of the body of the praying mantis, at this time the praying mantis will also lose its life because of the sudden drilling out of the worm in the body, even if it is lucky enough to survive, it may become the host of the next nematode, so for the host of the nematode, once infected, it is basically a dead life.
How exactly do nematodes control their hosts?
As to why praying mantis rushed into the water source, many scientists have put forward a variety of hypotheses. Among them, some scholars believe that when praying mantis is parasitized, it may lead to severe dehydration due to a severe lack of nutrients in the body, which in turn prompts them to rush to the water source to quench their thirst; However, there are other researchers who have put forward a different view, who believe that the reason why praying mantis exhibits phototaxis behavior may be attracted to specific light rays. Some scientists believe that nematodes may secrete special proteins to control the behavior of the praying mantis, which allows the mantis to actively move closer to the water source.
The latest research has revealed the reason at the genetic level, it turns out that the iron worm is trying to seize the host's genes to control the host's behavior! According to reports, Tappei Mishina, a biologist at Kyoto University in Japan, and his research team conducted a genetic analysis of the nematodes, selecting three periods, that is, before, during, and after control, and then compared.
The results of the experiment are very surprising, after the nematode controls the host, its gene expression has undergone major changes, in a total of about 4500 genes 1400 mutations, in short, the nematode in the body of the mantis, secretly stealing the mantis genes, resulting in the nematode has many genes similar to the praying mantis, and these genes create some substances, these substances are the key to control the mantis. This behavior, known as "horizontal gene transfer", genetically controls the host!
Is the movie Invasion of the Wireworms real?
In 2012, a creepy movie called "Invasion of the Wireworms" was released in South Korea, and the scenes were shocking and terrifying. So, what is the distribution of nematodes in our country? Wire worms have appeared in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangzhou, Chongqing and other places.
So, can nematodes invade the human body? Will the horror images in the movie appear in reality? First of all, let's be clear that nematodes do parasitize humans, and although humans are not their preferred hosts, they do. If you eat undercooked food or unpurified water, you may be parasitized by the nematode. Many cases of parasitism of nematodes have also been found in clinical practice.
But don't worry, even if the human body is infected with Wireworm, it will not be controlled by it, and the symptoms may be much milder than that of praying mantis! In general, taking anthelmintic medicine can easily excrete them from the body.