A Really Gross Discovery On The Way Into an Otherwise Beautiful Temple

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 280 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Scene of the Discovery

entrance to the Rurikou-in Temple (瑠璃光院), Kyoto Japan

Nov 2012

More from the archives as I wade through my photo library, this time a
gross discovery in November 2012. On our way into the Rurikou-in Temple
(瑠璃光院) in Kyoto, Damien and I discovered a weird wire-like “thing”
twisting and withering energetically on the steps.

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2500 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Thin and Wirelike

curling/uncurling haphazardly, almost violently

めちゃイヤ！ハリガネムシです。








Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Shoe for Scale

I had never seen anything like it. My first
thought was that it was a piece of wire that was
caught by the wind or something, but it quickly became apparent that it was
alive. It was too thin and hard to be any kind of
worm I'd ever heard of, so I was dumbfounded.

It caught the attention of an old man going by, and he said that when he
was a kid, these things would emerge from praying mantises. It was some
kind of parasite. They'd see a praying mantis acting strangely, he said,
and dip it in water and voila, the worm-like thing would emerge from
the insect's rear end.

Yuuuuuck!

With this disquieting thought in mind, we left the worm-like organism to itself and continued up the steps, when lo and behold
a few steps later we came to the body of a dazed mantis...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 7200 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Discarded Host

つかれられた生息地








Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1600 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Old Man Shows Us

where the wire/worm thing had emerged from

I did some investigation on the web, and this is more disgusting than I could have imagined.

The worm/wire thing is called a horsehair worm (the
Japanese translates to “wire bug”), and they are the stuff nightmares are
made of.

It turns out that the microscopic larva of the thing was drunk by some
insect, which was then eaten by the mantis. That's how the larve gets into
the mantis' gut. The larva then grows big enough
to bore out of the gut and into the body cavity, and grows there into
adulthood (inside the mantis, eventually filling its entire body cavity; it
ends up being several times longer than the host). When it's ready to
emerge, it wants to do so in water, so it somehow alters the mantis' brain
to make it seek water like a thirst-crazed zombie. The
mantis normally drowns itself in the process, at which point the
worm-thing crawls out to go live its happy life, make (microscopic) babies,
and start the cycle all over again.

Not for the faint of heart, but this video explains it in short,
and there are many videos showing them in action (in English
and in Japanese).

ハリガネムシのは聞いた事無かった。面白いですが、かなりいやです。ビデオはこちらです。

Gross. Just gross.

This mantis was not near the water, so maybe it was dying and the worm decided to bail early. I dunno. Yuck.

And so to not end on that thought, here is a quick look at the wonderful moss just inside the entrance to the temple...

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2500 —
map & image data — nearby photos








Nikon D4 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/400 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1100 —
map & image data — nearby photos








Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 5600 —
map & image data — nearby photos