Most people noticing horsehair worm in the water, trying to get out of there away.Most likely, this is due to popular rumor that this worm penetrate the skin of man and brings him incredible meal.Biologists categorically reject, does not cause any harm to human horsehair.In water, it multiplies, and no to anything else he just does not care.By the way, this worm lives in both fresh and salt water bodies, but only in clean water.
«Horse hair" refers to a type of invertebrate animals, in which the larvae are parasitic way of life unique.This worm is a fossil known since the Eocene.It is also called hair-worm, or gordiatsiey Gordian knot.Today, scientists know of at least 350 species of hair-worm.Their length can vary from 50 to 100 cm, very rare, but there are two-meter individual.Thus in diameter are not more than 1 mm, some may be up to 3 mm.In the presented pictures clearly seen, it looks like horsehair.Photo clearly demonstrates its filamentary body is clad in dense cuticle.It feels tough and it really is a bit like a real horse hair.On one of the photos horsehair seen that one end of the worm ends a fork.Only it's not hair-your mouth - it simply does not have the mouth and the posterior part of the intestine.The adult worm is powered by agents that he had accumulated, still in the body of his master.By the way, the fork is only for males.They cover the male during copulation the female body.Special respiratory he, too, is not breathing the Gordian knot of the entire surface of the body.
Moves horse hair in the water quite typical.Most often it slowly swims along the bottom, and the winds in all directions.But maybe the snake swim, sometimes bizarre forms a loop, like a twist into a ball, tying around.But the most interesting is the ability to live larvae of the worm.Horse hair - of different sexes worm fertilized eggs - internal.
larva equipped with special hooks, which it uses to penetrate into the body of its host, which may be the larvae of aquatic insects.Once inside the larva hair-stops for the duration of its development.She has to wait until together with the first host it gets into the body of the second.For example, they swallow the predatory beetle beetle.It horsehair larva lives in gemotseli, there it right through your skin absorbs nutrients.Step older can occur from a few weeks to several months.Transformed into an adult worm breaks through the veils of body hair-from his master and gets out, and so is horse hair in the water.
Detect hair-most often from rivers, lakes, wetlands and other water bodies.Most often it occurs in waters that are low flow.There he squirms on the sandy bottom, somewhere in a shallow place.Sometimes it can be seen right next to the shore.If you notice a tangle of long, thin worms, brown or black, very similar to horse hair, got into the water, then do not worry, it is absolutely safe for humans and does not cause any harm.
