[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

***Squirm Warning***

Whaaaaaaaaaathefuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck is this?

Some info...I make no guarantees.

from here

How would you explain the presence of a long writhing worm found in the cold remains of last night's cup of coffee? Something you narrowly missed drinking perhaps? But then you notice a large dead huntsman spider on the bench near the coffee cup... hmmm.

Poor old spiders! Their lives are full of tribulations, and some of the worst involve insidious attacks by a variety of lethal parasitic organisms. The worm in the coffee cup, probably a mermithid nematode, is one of these. Mermithid worms are internal parasites whose infective larvae enter spiders directly or via ingested food. Once inside the spider, the tiny worm obtains nourishment from it's hosts body fluids, digestive glands, gonads ('parasitic castration') and muscles. As a consequence the spider becomes progressively more debilitated, but doesn't actually die. This is because the spider's vital organs usually remain intact, even though all of the abdomen, and occasionally part of the cephalothorax, may be filled with worm coils. Eventually in a scene reminiscent of the movie "Alien", the gorged worm bursts out of the body of the debilitated spider, which finally dies after this macabre event.

Before it dies, however the spider often has to perform one more task for it's deadly parasite. In some mermithids, the final free-living stage of the worm is aquatic, so that it is advantageous for the worm if its emergence can take place near a water body - a pond, a creek or puddle. To increase this likelihood, such worms seem able to induce their hapless hosts to seek water, spiders sometimes actually walking into the water before the worm emerges. This behavior may result from thirst-induced activity as the worm consumes the spider's body fluids. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that the spider's water seeking behavior helps to ensure the parasite's survival and propagation.

So what happened in the kitchen during the night? Perhaps the thirsty huntsman spider was carrying a water-dependant parasite and could find only one 'water body' in the kitchen - a cold cup of coffee left on a bench. The weakened spider climbed up the side of the cup and fell in. The tightly coiled worm then emerged from the spider's body into the liquid. The dying spider may then have managed to crawl out of the cup, only to succumb on the kitchen bench. - Mike Gray, Australian Museum

The article is from Nature Australia, Spring 1995
Copyright: The Australian Museum