The parasite makes its way into the body cavity of the insect where it absorbs nutrients from the insects’ food through the body wall. Once ingested, the cysts dissolve inside of the grasshopper or cricket gut. Once the eggs hatch into larvae, they live inside cysts in vegetation - vegetation that is ingested by crickets, grasshoppers and other insects or bugs. She typically lays her eggs in water plants. The female can lay as many as 10 million eggs. The life cycle begins when a male and female horsehair worm mate in soil or freshwater. They can also be found swimming around in lakes, rivers, streams, and garden ponds. They have been spotted emerging from a cricket on the kitchen floor of homes or in the toilet after a cricket has been dumped there, and they have even been spotted in pet’s water bowls. Finding horsehair worms in odd places is not uncommon. They usually peak during the late summer as well as during the fall months. Horsehair worms are typically dark brown in color, but some are tan, yellow or black.

Horsehair worms belong to the roundworm family and they earned the name because they look just like the thin hair of a horse tail. You can also place an insecticide barrier around your house foundation to kill any arthropod pests infested with horsehair worms. If you flush it, the horsehair worm will escape from the insect’s body through the toilet. If you kill an insect, make sure you take it out of the home immediately. To keep parasitized insects out of your home, you should caulk or seal entry sites.

treat domestic water supply systems by filtering and treating with chemicals under the direction of the local health department.

install a mesh filter or screen to keep the worms from water pumped from a surface supply such as a farm pond or canal.use plain water to get rid of them (you can spray them).

If you feel that you have a horsehair worm infestation and they need to be controlled, you can: That said, because they are not harmful to humans and because they actually kill harmful pests such as grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches, beetles, millipedes, centipedes, snails, slugs, etc., no control measures are recommended. Unless you kill them right after exiting the body, they parasitize another insect. Horsehair worms can only parasitize suitable insect hosts, so after crushing pests such as crickets, millipedes, or centipedes, the worms will quickly exit the body and crawl for cover.

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