Horse hair: human-eating parasites - myth or reality?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Probably, everyone can remember horror stories from childhood, the main character of which was horsehair. Parasites that penetrate the skin while swimming in a river or lake enter any organ with blood and can easily eat from the inside of a person.

Horsehair Legends

As they say, you need to know the enemy by sight. And what is this monster? In the 17th century, people believed that it was a hair from a horse's mane that came to life in the water. Our grandmothers described it as a cross between a leech and a worm. Someone even compares it with a small eyeless snake, which bites into the flesh with its sharp, blade-like teeth. Isn't it true that such descriptions can bring quiet horror and completely discourage the desire to climb into the water where these scarecrows live, even among the most risky daredevils? After all, dying from some kind of worm is unlikely to add glory and honors.

Real hairy facts

What does horse hair really look like? Not at all as intimidating as described above, although the sight is unpleasant. By the way, this monster also has a scientific name. Horsehair is nothing more than hairy (Gordius aquaticus L.),a very ancient invertebrate that parasitizes other organisms. Moreover, the worm replaces two owners in its life. Outwardly, the animal really looks like a thickened horsehair. With a diameter of 1 mm, it can reach a length of 1.5 m. However, most often there are individuals 30-40 cm long. Males are brown or almost black in color, females are yellow or yellowish-brown.

Small ponds and small streams are the favorite habitats of hairy. They meander in shallow water among stones and plants or weave into complex knots. It is behind this activity that you are most likely to see horse hair. Parasites look especially unsightly when, wriggling, spirally emerge from the swollen carcass of an insect, 6-8 individuals each.

The female is stuffed to overflowing with the smallest eggs, which she lays in the form of long cords on water plants. Then almost a million toothy larvae take root in insects, where they can live up to a year. The hatched and dried larvae of stoneflies and mayflies become victims of the attack of ground beetles and other beetles. It is in them that horsehair finds its home. Parasites begin to develop and grow, feeding on the juices of the host. Although they have a mouth, it is not connected to the intestinal tract. A practically immobilized beetle enters water bodies, and already there adult worms break through its cover and go outside with the sole purpose of multiplying. And the life cycle repeats again.

In the city of Montpellier (in France), research on the life of a hairy mantis ended veryinteresting conclusions. Scientist David Biron found that the worm produces protein molecules, and they are similar to those that make up the brain of an insect. These pseudo-proteins are integrated into the protein structure of the nervous system, thus changing the behavioral responses of the praying mantis. After such brainwashing, the unfortunate insect rushes to certain death in the nearest body of water. Hair, of course, is all that is needed. The dying victim brings him back to his normal habitat.

Danger to humans

That's such an interesting life horsehair has. Why is this monstrous beast dangerous to humans? In short, nothing. The hairy man does not penetrate into the human body, biting through the skin and gnawing through the passages. This is done by gadfly larvae and other disgusting creatures. Even if, by a strange coincidence, you do not notice the worms and swallow horsehair with water, the parasites will not survive in the digestive tract. So grandmother's tales about a terrible monster living in the lake and eating a person from the inside are just fiction.