Written by: Rushina Tamang - 26008, Grade VIII
Posted on: 30 June, 2021
The hairworm starts as an egg, in a river. One of many as a long string. The eggs grow into squiggly larvae, which get eaten by a mayfly larva that also lives in the water. And inside the mayfly is exactly where the hairworm needs to be. The hairworm starts using its pointy part to burrow into the mayfly’s flesh. After that, it curls up and waits. Because in reality, it's not after a mayfly. It is after cricket. So, it sits tight. While the mayfly larva turns into an adult and heads into dry land. Where, it just might get eaten by a cricket. That Cricket has no idea what it's for. Inside the cricket, the hairworm goes at it. It eats all the crickets stored up fat for about a month. The cricket loses its chirp but the hairworm doesn't kill it. Because the worm needs to get back to the water. Crickets usually avoid bodies of water, after all, they’re not great swimmers. So, the worm takes over the ming of the cricket, boosting chemicals into the crickets mind, which makes the cricket walk around mindlessly until it happens to reach water. After the cricket finds a body of water, it jumps into the water. The cricket makes a break for it. They start emerging out of the crickets anus. But don’t worry, they don’t target humans. And sometimes, there are multiple hairworms inside the cricket. If there are multiple crickets, they don’t even waste time. They start to mate even when they’re not even fully out of the cricket. But hairworms like these can help scientists learn about parasites like toxoplasma that make us sick. As for the crickets, if they don’t drown, most of them survive. They go back to being crickets and hopefully stay on dry land.
