![]() ![]() The most famous trait of certain species of horsehair worms is the ability to alter the behaviour of grasshoppers and crickets to seek water, causing the host to drown itself to complete its lifecycle. As the worms wriggle about in water, they become tangled up into a loose knot, hence the other common name, Gordian worms (after the famous Gordian Knot). Horsehair worms are parasitic worms of the clade Nematoida alongside their sister taxa Nematoda, the roundworms. The newly released horsehair worms are white or pale, but soon darken to brown or almost black. ![]() They get their name from the mysterious appearance of the worms in watering troughs where people evidently imagined that the hairs from the horses fell into the trough and "came alive." Evidently infected grasshoppers or other insects fall into the water, rot, and release the horsehair worms. Some horsehair worms grow almost 28 inches long (!) but all of them are extremely slender. The worms develop inside the host insect and eventually kill it. The tiny, newly hatched larvae swim about for a day or so and then are thought to encyst on vegetation where they are accidently consumed by crickets, grasshoppers, beetles or some other insects or the larvae may be ingested as its host insect drinks infested water. Adult horsehair worms are aquatic and lay millions of eggs in a stringy, gelatinous mass (some strings are more than 7 feet long!). One way to avoid horsehair worms is by keeping your home clean and tidy so there is no food for them to eat. Horsehair worms are not native to North America but have been found in some parts of the United States and Canada. Once the larval worm matures, it waits for the insect to die or fall into water so that the worm can emerge to complete its life cycle in water. Horsehair worms, also known as Gordian worms, are a type of roundworm that can grow up to 1.5 meters in length. ![]() Horsehair worms, Phylum Nematomorpha, are nematode-like parasites that develop as larvae inside insects. Description and Biology Skip to Description and Biology ![]()
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