Worm horse hair in the water for humans is completely safe

Most people, having noticed the worm horse hair in the water, try to get out from there further away. Most likely, this is due to the popular rumor that this worm penetrates the human skin and brings him incredible agony. Biologists categorically reject this, no harm causes a horse's hair. In the water he multiplies, and to nothing else he simply does not care. By the way, this worm inhabits both fresh and salty water bodies, but only in pure water.

"Horsehair" refers to the type of invertebrate animals, in which the larvae lead a unique parasitic life. This worm is known in fossil form even from the Eocene. It is also called a hairy, gordian knot or gordia. Today, scientists know at least 350 varieties of hairy. Their length can range from 50 to 100 cm, very rarely, but there are two-meter individuals. At the same time in diameter they are no more than 1 mm, some can reach 3 mm. In the presented pictures you can clearly see what horse hair looks like. The photo clearly shows his filiform body, which is dressed in a dense cuticle. To the touch it is hard and really something like a horse hair. On one of the photos of the horsehair, one end of the worm ends with a fork. Only this is not the mouth of a hairy - it simply does not have a mouth opening, but the posterior part of the intestine. An adult worm feeds on the substances that it accumulated while still in the body of its master. By the way, the fork is only in males. The male, when copulating, covers the body of the female. He does not have any special respiratory organs, the Gordian knot breathes the entire surface of his body.

Horse hair in the water moves quite characteristically. Most often, it slowly floats on the bottom, while it winds in all directions. But it can also like a snake to swim, and sometimes forms whimsical loops, as if tangled into a ball, fastened around itself. But the most interesting is the vital activity of the larvae of this worm. Horsehair - an unisex worm, fertilization of eggs - internal.

The larva is equipped with special hooks, which it uses to penetrate the body of its host, which can become the larva of an aquatic insect. Having penetrated into the larva of the hairy man stops for a time its development. 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 beetle-beetle. In it, the horse hair larva lives in the hemocoel, where it absorbs nutrients right through its skin. The stage of growing up can occur from several weeks to several months. Turning into an adult worm, the hairy breaks through the covers of the body from its master and is selected outside, so it turns out horse hair in the water.

To find out hairy can often be near rivers, lakes, marshes and other water bodies. Especially often it occurs in waters that have a slow current. There he wriggles on a sandy bottom, somewhere in a shallow place. Sometimes it can be seen right near the shore. If you notice a tangle of long and thin worms of brown or black, very similar to horsehair, trapped in water, do not be alarmed, it is completely safe for humans and will not cause any harm.