The Horse Hair Worm

I remember when I was a kid, maybe 8 or 10 years old, back when I still spent all my time outside wandering in the woods, I found this really crazy thing in a stream. It was about two feet long and about as thick as a hair. In fact it looked just like a long brown hair that had been plucked from a person and dropped in the stream but it seemed to be alive! I put it in a big pickle jar and watched it to make sure it really was alive and not just moving in the currents. Sure enough, it was.

My dad had no idea what it was so I took it to school and the teacher had no idea either. They passed it around to different classes and every science teacher came to look at it and everyone was puzzled but every one wanted to see that pickle jar. We looked in all the encyclopedias and biology books in the library and other teachers from other schools in town, the high school, etc. came to look at it and had no idea either. It was a marvel.

Eventually I found another one and a teacher discovered it in an obscure biology book. It turned out it was a nematomorpha, most often called a "horse hair worm."

I felt so special to have discovered that thing. Like I had confronted everyone in my childhood world with a marvel no one could explain.

If I found it now I'd know inside of five seconds what it was after I said, "OK Google, what is a long hair like worm?" into my smart phone.

Is this a good thing? I haven't decided. I've spent a lot of time the last few days, since I randomly remembered the whole thing, wondering. I can't get it out of my head. During that whole experience I spent a lot of time pouring over biology books and learned a lot of interesting stuff about the streams where I was playing. Now, finding it on wikipedia, I most likely would have thought, "Oh, it's a horse hair worm." and moved on.

If I'd even found it in the first place. In 1995 my parents bought a PC and the year after connected it to the internet. I spent a lot less time outside after that.