You thought that the blue whale the largest animal ERA OF THE EARTH? You were not wrong, a parasite that only stay IN SPERM WHALE SPECIES IS THE LARGEST OF THE EARTH CAN MEASURE UP TO 40 FEET !!!!!
This is the story of a giant monster and quite unknown. The first specimens were found and classified by Russian scientists in the 60 and 70, and since then have rarely seen the light. In 1967, the Russian scientist A. Skriabin and his team discovered one of the largest specimens documented so far, a worm 30 meters long and 5 inches thick that had colonized the guts of a whale and had been infested for years.
The Polygonoporus giganticus is a flatworm that lives in the intestines of whales and can reach huge dimensions of 40 meters. In this darkness lives, feeds and breeds until they get to spend their eggs to another creature and repeats the cycle.
The tapeworms, flatworms of the same kind of tapeworm that parasitizes humans, have no mouth or digestive tract, just attach to the host intestine and absorb nutrients through the skin. At one end are something of a head, the scolex, which is fitted with hooks and suction cups to attach to the intestinal wall, and a flattened body that is growing by segments or rings.
"The Polygonoporus giganticus are specific parasites of sperm whales (Physeter catodon) and live in your intestines and bile ducts," he tells me by e-mail Roman Kuchta, a specialist in cestodes of the Czech Republic. "They have been described from Antarctica to the North Pacific and are probably the longest in the world creatures."
These creatures belong to the order Diphyllobothriidea and have some extraordinary features, its ability to develop multiple reproductive organs in each segment. In the case of the creature trapped by Skriabin in 1967, reached up to 14 gonads in each segment, which is a record for such animals.
They can be very long-lived and live with their host for decades. "We know how Polygonoporus lives, but the Diphyllobothrium latum, qu parasite to humans, can grow a lot," says Kuchta. "In 25 meters copies of a document has reached up to 4,000 segments. These parasites can live for 20 years and over: human infection has been recorded more than 25 years. "
Thus, these worms living inside the whale are certainly creatures "elders" who have lived in it for up to 30 years, and we still know very little. Unfortunately, no photographic record of them (at least I have not been able procurármela the experts I've talked to) and this worm is still a mystery.
The difficulty to study, says Kuchta, is that most records were made by Russian authors for many years and is now almost impossible to get more worms to update the studies, "because their hosts are the whales." "So if you know someone who can get you a whale," he jokes, "please stay with the worms!".
:Shocking::Shocking::Shocking::Shocking::Shocking::Shocking:
This is the story of a giant monster and quite unknown. The first specimens were found and classified by Russian scientists in the 60 and 70, and since then have rarely seen the light. In 1967, the Russian scientist A. Skriabin and his team discovered one of the largest specimens documented so far, a worm 30 meters long and 5 inches thick that had colonized the guts of a whale and had been infested for years.
The Polygonoporus giganticus is a flatworm that lives in the intestines of whales and can reach huge dimensions of 40 meters. In this darkness lives, feeds and breeds until they get to spend their eggs to another creature and repeats the cycle.
The tapeworms, flatworms of the same kind of tapeworm that parasitizes humans, have no mouth or digestive tract, just attach to the host intestine and absorb nutrients through the skin. At one end are something of a head, the scolex, which is fitted with hooks and suction cups to attach to the intestinal wall, and a flattened body that is growing by segments or rings.
"The Polygonoporus giganticus are specific parasites of sperm whales (Physeter catodon) and live in your intestines and bile ducts," he tells me by e-mail Roman Kuchta, a specialist in cestodes of the Czech Republic. "They have been described from Antarctica to the North Pacific and are probably the longest in the world creatures."
These creatures belong to the order Diphyllobothriidea and have some extraordinary features, its ability to develop multiple reproductive organs in each segment. In the case of the creature trapped by Skriabin in 1967, reached up to 14 gonads in each segment, which is a record for such animals.
They can be very long-lived and live with their host for decades. "We know how Polygonoporus lives, but the Diphyllobothrium latum, qu parasite to humans, can grow a lot," says Kuchta. "In 25 meters copies of a document has reached up to 4,000 segments. These parasites can live for 20 years and over: human infection has been recorded more than 25 years. "
Thus, these worms living inside the whale are certainly creatures "elders" who have lived in it for up to 30 years, and we still know very little. Unfortunately, no photographic record of them (at least I have not been able procurármela the experts I've talked to) and this worm is still a mystery.
The difficulty to study, says Kuchta, is that most records were made by Russian authors for many years and is now almost impossible to get more worms to update the studies, "because their hosts are the whales." "So if you know someone who can get you a whale," he jokes, "please stay with the worms!".
:Shocking::Shocking::Shocking::Shocking::Shocking::Shocking:
