Most people, seeing a horsehair worm in the water, try to get out of there as far away as possible. Most likely, this is due to the popular rumor that this worm penetrates under the skin of a person and brings him incredible torment. Biologists categorically reject this, horse hair does no harm to a person. In water, he breeds, and he simply does not care about anything else. By the way, this worm lives both in fresh and s alty water bodies, but only in clean water.
"Horse hair" refers to a type of invertebrate animal whose larvae lead a unique parasitic lifestyle. This worm has been known in fossil form since the Eocene. It is also called hairy, Gordian knot or Gordiation. Today, scientists know at least 350 varieties of hairies. Their length can vary from 50 to 100 cm, very rarely, but there are two-meter individuals. At the same time, they are no more than 1 mm in diameter, some can reach 3 mm. The pictures below clearly show what horse hair looks like. The photo clearly demonstrates its filamentous body, which is dressed in a dense cuticle. To the touch hehard and really somewhat reminiscent of real horsehair. One of the photos of the horsehair shows that one end of the worm ends in a fork. Only this is not a hairy mouth - it simply does not have a mouth opening, but a posterior intestine. An adult worm feeds on the substances that it has accumulated while still in the body of its host.
By the way, only males have a fork. With them, the male during copulation covers the body of the female. He also does not have special respiratory organs, the Gordian knot breathes with the entire surface of his body.
Moving horsehair in the water is quite typical. Most often, it slowly swims along the bottom, while wriggling in all directions. But it can also swim like a snake, and sometimes it forms bizarre loops, as if twisting into a ball, tying around itself. But the most interesting is the vital activity of the larvae of this worm. Horsehair is a heterosexual worm, fertilization of eggs is internal.
The larva is equipped with special hooks that it uses to penetrate the body of its host, which can become a larva of an aquatic insect. Having penetrated inside, the hairy larva stops its development for a while. She has to wait until, together with the first owner, she gets into the body of the second. For example, they will be swallowed by a predatory swimming beetle.
In it, the horsehair larva lives in the hemocoel, where it absorbs nutrients directly through its skin. The maturation stage can occur from a few weeks to severalmonths. Having turned into an adult worm, the hairy one breaks through the integuments of the body of its owner and gets out, thus the horsehair turns out to be in the water.
You can most often find hairy near rivers, lakes, swamps and other bodies of water. It is especially common in waters that have a slow current. There he wriggles on the sandy bottom, somewhere in a shallow place. Sometimes it can be seen right next to the shore. If you notice a ball of long and thin brown or black worms, very similar to horsehair, that has fallen into the water, then do not be alarmed, it is completely safe for humans and will not cause any harm.
