Are you eating?

The natural world never ceases to amaze me. If you keep your eyes open you often see something new. Last year was the first time I noticed that once and a while when I shot a grasshopper with a BB a parasitic worm emerged.

This year I vowed to collect a few and take them to my favorite old entomologist. I was only able to get worms out of females with well developed eggs at the rate of about 20% for the hoppers on the ground and approaching 100% of the hoppers that act slow and have assumed a high position on my raspberries.

These five worms are out of one grasshopper!

Here is their super cool story. They are called nematomorphs or thread worms. This is the larval stage. The adults are aquatic worms that mate and lay huge numbers of eggs that hatch into tiny larva that are eaten by aquatic insects. They immediately encyst themselves and wait for the aquatic insect to metamorphose into something with wings. The encysted worm gets a free winged ride to land. Hoppers are omnivores and eat pretty much anything, including dead insects with larval worm cysts which once ingested start growing inside the hopper. This larval stage is the only stage that eats, yet they have no mouth, no anus, no digestive system at all, and no circulatory or respiratory system, either. They simply absorb everything they need. But here is the cool part. These worms know how to affect grasshopper behavior! They need to get back to water to become adults, mate and lay eggs. They get the hoppers to commit suicide by throwing themselves into water to drown. The worms emerge, turn into adults and the cycle starts over. If you see a dead hopper in your cat or dog's water dish, look for worms. I did see, I did look, and I did find. How's that for a little knowledge going a long way to open my eyes?

My old entomologist told me that it is damn near impossible to identify species from the larva, you have to put them in water and let them turn into adults so you can tell them apart. Guess I have to wait to find out. But I better get a few more. I'm headed into the garden tomorrow armed with a BB gun, some tweezers and a glass of water. Wish me luck.