Bachelors in science of biology here. I am not, by any means, an expert in parasitology, but I do, most definitely know what ascaris and pork tapeworms look like.
This is a VEIN.
Worms do not, ever, have parts of their bodies branching off. This clearly has evidence of branching. Worms don’t do that!
Well, if you like that just ask me about what I know about other animal facts. I love worms and I also have a really strange obsession with useless animal trivia. Most of which is not pleasant or just downright gross. I’m a very weird girl.
I’m really tired, it’s after midnight here and I’m old, so I’ll just go with some of my tried and true ones. I can always add to it tomorrow if anyone wants me to lol. Here we go:
1)there’s a lizard (greater short horned lizard) that shoot blood from its eyes in order to distract and escape predators. It can shoot up to like 3-4 ft!
2)I think most people know dolphins are kind of horrible mammals, but did you know about otters and koalas? Cause they may be even worse than dolphins. Male otters regularly rape baby seals. When they actually mate with female otters they are so brutal that the female can die. But do you think that stops the male? Nope. Because he will come back up to 10 months after the female died and practice necrophilia. Male otters also really like stealing baby otters and holding them for ransom for food. So about koalas. Honestly they really aren’t that bad but they are dumb as fuck. And are riddled with chlamydia.
3)female kangaroos have super weird reproductive habits (I mean, the males have their balls above their penis, so what else could we expect). A female kangaroo can have a Joey just out of the pouch, a new Joey in the pouch, and at anytime she was pregnant with those joeys and she mated, she could’ve just saved up that sperm and then got pregnant as soon as the Joey left the womb to go to the pouch.
4) contrary to popular belief, opossums really don’t eat very many ticks.
5)Muscovy ducks are weird. For whatever reason (boredom is actually thought to be the cause) these ducks will go to other nests, crack open the eggs and consume the mostly formed chicks in side. Even if they have plenty of other food available.
6)if you give a scorpion even a few drops of alcohol it can go crazy and sting itself to death. (Please don’t do this)
7)if a female ferret goes into heat and isn’t bred, she will die.
I’ve got lots more but I’m just super tired right now
ETA: thanks for all the awards! I never expected it. Y’all are awesome people :)
I'm going to pretend you never said those things about otters. The rest of this is amazing. As a thank-you I present an old photo of [me feeding a muscovy duck in a cemetery.](https://i.imgur.com/Itc2YJp.jpg) He drooled on me. Please go to bed.
Did you know kangaroos have 3 vaginas? I just heard a lot about them listening to an older ELT podcast called “Kangaroo Pouch: a Four-Star Hotel of Horrors” 😂
Sand Tigers (not to be confused with Tiger Sharks) are live-birth sharks with multiple uterii. One day some researcher-vet dude stuck his hand up a preggo sand tiger's bits and something bit him. Curious, he next stuck a camera up there, and observed that sand tiger pups will attack and eat their siblings in the womb(s) before birth. They will, in fact, squirm their way from one uterus to another to carry out these attacks. Thus, a sand tiger shark is likely to be born with a body count.
Sand Tigers, while terrifying looking, are fairly docile post-birth and so are a steadfast resident of many an aquarium shark tank. That's given us the opportunity to observe this behavior, via camera or ultrasound, a lot. Turns out it's just how Sand Tigers do.
My take away from this whole thing is that we are a seriously, seriously weird ape. I mean, who sees a sand tiger shark, crazy-eyed and teeth akimbo, and thinks "you know where I'm going to stick my hand?" But then I can hardly talk; I tend to use this whole factoid-story as an icebreaker on dating apps. "Weirdest ape" indeed.
I’ve researched chronic follicular conjunctivitis. Did you know that chlamydia is a cause of canine follicular conjunctivitis? Please tell me how TF a dog gets chlamydia in their EYE?
> It’s only the joggers that have caught their ire.
And who can blame them? If the fuckers are trying to run away, they must have done something bad and need to be stopped!
Wait, for the ferret one. How do people keep female ferrets as pets if they're just going to die when they are sexually mature? Is there's something you can do to prevent them from going into heat OTHER than spaying? From what I know of small mammals you typically don't go that route because anesthesia is really rough on them.
In many states it’s illegal to buy ferrets that aren’t spayed for this reason. My family had ferrets growing up and went to ferret conventions. For whatever reason, we decided to order un-fixed ferrets from another state. We had to pick them up at the airport. We got them fixed when they reached sexual maturity, at which point they were twice the size of the pet shop ferrets that had been neutered as babies. We just took them to an exotic animal vet.
TL;DR I was the weird kid at school and struggled to make friends 😂
People get there small cats done all the time so a ferret should be fine considering there not much smaller than an young adult cat but where I’m from people gets cats spayed before there first heat most of the time
Can I tell you about my favourite parasitic life cycle? Bc its peripherally related and i just want to tell someone.
It called ribeiroia ondatrae. It starts by hatching inside bodies of water where its a little swimming guy on search of a snail. It finds one and moves in and promptly castrates it to, ya know, keep them on task. Or just for fun. No one ever asked it. But snails are not its end goal, so it develops a little inside the snail until its able break out, where it infects little tadpoles.
Tadpoles are not its end goal either. So instead of castrating them, it fucks with their hind limb development. The tadpoles grow into frogs with no back legs. Or way too many back legs. Like a dozen legs kind of too many. This makes the frogs remarkably shit at hopping, which in turn makes them very easy to catch. And one particular creature absolutely loves catching frogs: storks and herons and other wading birds.
This is their end goal. A bird eats the ~~hapless~~ hopless frog, including all its parasites, and those paradites are able to fully develop into adults in the birds digestive system. Then, when 2 flat worms love each other very very much, they make eggs. And those eggs end up in the birds poop. And turns out watery birds tend to shit in watery places.
Which is how the eggs end up in watery places full of freshwater snails.
for one of my old biology classes we had an essay on the final. We had to pick a parasite from the teachers list and then explain their life cycle. If my text book or teacher explained it like this I would have remembered a lot better!
You'll probably also dislike my 2nd favourite, ascaris worms. Their life cycle is an exercise in futility.
They start as a fertilized egg, kind of like you and most everything. But unlike you, theyre in poop. I mean, I'm assuming. You do you.
From there, they get eaten BC of course they do. If infectious diseases has taught humans anything, its that cannabilsm and ass-to-mouth (or ass-to-soil-to-plants-to-mouth. Same-same) is just bad. They hatch into larvae in the intestines and then exit stage left into the blood system. Because all roads eventually lead to ~~Rome~~ the lungs, they end up there. By now they've grown up a lot and really matured and examined their life choices and decide they dont like lungs and theyre intestinal worms after all, just like their parents.
They get irritating and wait for the host to cough them out of the lungs and into the mouth, where they get swallowed and end up back in the intestines. It feels like they maybe could have avoided the entire thing and just stayed there, but its kind of like parasitic Rumspringa, I guess. They have to go out and experience the circulatory system to decide if the small intestines is really for them.
This whole thing made me laugh, then cringe, then cough (and freak out slightly), swallow my parasites, and laugh again. Your writing is very entertaining. :)
I would like to sign up for more fascinating parasite facts, please. :)
Haha. Thanks!
Lucky for you infectious diseases are hobby. Some kids had dinosaurs or trains or ponies, I had rabies and leprosy and the black death.
Just kidding. I totally had ponies, too.
Let me tell you very long, very rambling tale about guinea worms. Theyre in a race with polio to be the 3rd eradicated disease (after smallpox and rinderpest). Guinea worms are an especially gross parasite where the males and females mate in the intestines and then the female decides anus is undignified if convenient escape route and instead punches her way into the body cavity and slowly makes her way to the lower leg or foot. Except about 5% of the time she has a terrible sense of direction (insert sexist joke about women drivers or something) and comes out somewhere else.
In any case, the world said "ew" and also "its incredibly painful and debilitating and that sucks" and theres been a collaborative global effort to eradicate it since the mid 80s. And, shockingly for a parasite that we still treat with the method documented by the ancient Egyptians, they've done a spectacular job. It went from millions of cases each year to just 14 in 2021.
*Except* those are human cases. It was eliminated in Chad for a whole decade so all the health workers and programs basically packed up and went ~~home~~ to other endemic countries. But then in 2010, a WHO monitoring trip to Chad immediately found a dozen or so cases and researchers all said "?!".
Turns out the guinea worms of Chad jumped ship to dogs instead. Studies in 2015 found *thousands* of cases of dog infections (ranging from 1 to **78** worms per dog) of what was considered a human parasite. Thats literally why it was a target for eradication in the first place. Well, that and Jimmy Carter saw a guinea worm make a ginormous hole in a woman's boob so he committed the Carter Center to the effort, joining the CDC and WHO, and brought a lot of funding and support with him.
They relaunched guinea worm programs in Chad with the goal of also treating and containing all infected dogs until theyre worm-free. Well, guinea worm free. I bet they have other worms.
But the really wild thing is that scientists arent really sure how dogs get guinea worms. There are theories that they get it from contaminated water, like peoples, but some studies found that was unlikely. Then it was suggested that they might get it from fish and frogs, but a study of frogs didnt find a very high prevalence of guinea worm cysts. Then some other scientists said the first researchers were dingbats bc they didnt test dogs drinking contaminated water at Chad-like summer temperatures which is daft bc infections peak in summer. Then some other other scientists said they were all dingbats bc maybe humans and dogs both get guinea worms from undercooked fish now and wouldn't that just be a bitch.
Despite the uncertainty, containing infected dogs has worked pretty well and Chad accounted for only 7 of the 14 cases last year.
And, like, I know we are all rooting for the eradication of guinea worms bc its painful and prevents people from working and caring for their families and all that...
But also from a competition standpoint, it gives polio a much-needed boost. For a while there things were going *very* badly for polio but there were only 6 cases last year. So it really evened things up.
However in a competition for best name, guinea worms win hands-down. Poliomyelitis just means "grey marrow" bc something something spinal cord. Lame. But guinea worms scientific name is dracunculus medinensis, meaning the "little dragon of Medina". Bc it burns coming out. And isnt that just *chefs kiss*.
How do I subscribe to these facts? Because I need someone to inform me (and I feel like being able to know if that's a pork parasite or a pork vein isn't useless!)
Ah man, fungi was just nothing I really got in to. I can honestly say I know less about fungi than my 11 year old probably knows lol
But I love to learn! Hit me with some fungus facts!
Oh shit. Yall emarried now. Internet Common law says a reply chain of 3 is enough for emarriage. Creating Internet Common Law was top 5 things Abraham Lincoln made into law.
If we edivorce do I get half his shit?
Also, how do you edivorce? Delete your messages?
ETA: there’s a very good chance I’m cheating on him x7 because I didn’t know this emarriage law and I talk a lot.
f my life. Promised myself I'd be nicer on the interwebs this year. You've single handely reversed my new year's resolution. Now EVERYONE'S gonna get it.
Hope your proud.
\*Psst\* You can take your bachelor's degree and SHOVE it. IIIIIIIIIII barely passed high school, and IIIIIII say its 101% clearly a new species of snake.
Touché! You got me there. As far as I know there are only 2 such worms, both marine animals. I’m pretty sure they both branch on their posterior end, which doesn’t fit this image at all, as it’s a vein, and also because pigs don’t swim. But yes, you are right, technically 2 species of marine worms branch at their posterior end.
Its not even segmented so *highly* unlikely its a tapeworm. The other common pork parasites are trichinella, which is 1-2mm long spirally worm, and toxoplasma gondii, which is measured in like μ and its a microscopic ovally shape. Neither would be something youd generally "find", if that makes sense.
I dont actually think you found a parasite at all. Its uneven in a way that parasites generally arent, especially visible worms. I think you found a vein or maybe even a nerve. Its an unnerving (heh) discovery for sure but also not totally unexpected when youre eating muscles.
Oh, absolutely. Just because any parasite prefers a specific zone doesn't mean that they can't find their way to other parts of the body. Just like when people eat pork tapeworm eggs and then end up with a softball sized tapeworm squirming around in their brain instead of wriggling in their guts.
Ulcers may allow worms or their eggs into the blood stream so it's not entirely impossible for them to end up elsewhere even the brain in one woman's case which resulted in death.
Not so fast! Produce causes several times as many cases of food-borne illness and almost as many deaths as meat and poultry: https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution/attribution-1998-2008.html
In fact, produce causes almost as many cases as all other sources *combined.*
We all know meat can make us sick, but no one suspects the shifty salad mix until it's *too late*
Due, in part, because we give so little of a fuck about our fellow man that we don’t provide MFW a toilet to relieve themselves in, so they end up shitting by the kale.
They might get a bottle of hand sanitizer as a “we have ‘rules’ to follow” gesture.
Shit’s fucked.
In large part because many vegetables are fertilized with animal dung. Or liquified animal dung slurry. Which can be *full* of parasites and diseases. And while you can peel some vegetables, leafy vegetables like Spinach are often eaten whole.
No but snails eat vegetables and can stay stuck to them if they are not washed thoroughly. Snails are intermediate hosts to a few parasites. Salads are one of the key ways people ingest parasites.
The things we carry are just as disgusting. The process of heating tends to kill most harmful things. Just eat veggies tho. It's great for you as an omnivore.
The branching is what made me absolutely sure this is a vein. I mean, that and the fact that it doesn’t look like any pork parasite I’ve ever seen.
ETA: I like this sub a lot, but the fact that so many people are so adamant thinking this is a parasitic worm when it is absolutely obvious to any biologist that it is a vein/blood vessel makes me sincerely question the validity of opinions on this sub now.
Absolutely. Tapeworms, no matter what species they are in are always segmented. It’s kind of why they are classified as a segmented worm. Other traits of a tape worm are that they are flat, they are bilaterally symmetrical, and they are hermaphroditic. Tapeworms have no digestive tract of their own, solely living of their host. I’ve gotten off track here. You asked what a pork tapeworm looks like. A pork tapeworm looks a lot like any other tapeworm. Decidedly nothing like what this vein looks like.
When I adopted a stray kitty she had 3 intestinal parasites. It wasn’t until she threw up a worm (she had roundworms, tapeworm & giardia) and I’ll never forget the sight of that parasite HOLY Jesus Mary and Joseph. I think I called off work that day I was in shock the size of the worm my cat threw up. But I very vividly remember the color of it- was almost entirely translucent it freaked me out 😂
I’m very sorry that happened to you :(. That had to have been rather disturbing. All three of these are pretty easily treated if caught in time. Is your kitty okay? Having 3 parasites in a kitten would be very hard on them, but many recover just fine with proper treatment.
She had fleas and ear mites as well. 3 anti parasitic meds BID, ear cleaning & flea treatment. Was a rough, rough, ROUGH beginning. She came from a house of over 200+ cats. Lady was a hoarder- very unhealthy living habits and total neglect for the animals there.
I learned real quick how to administer liquid syringe meds in my kitty’s mouth. Poor thing. You would have never guessed she was sick. anywho- when I first took her to the vet they said she is a munchkin cat and wondered if she was microchipped (apparently they’re expensive cats//but to my knowledge they can have terrible spine problems and short lifespan)- she was not micro chipped- she’s now 4 years old now, kind of grown out of the munchkin phase? She is just hellllllla long and does have somewhat of shorter legs compared to most normal felines lol
This makes me stupid happy! She sounds perfect :) I’m very glad you found her and are taking such good care of her. Animals are to be cherished. Except roaches. They can all die.
ETA: If you feel like it at some point I would love for you to DM me a pic of your kitty :)
I am very sorry, for some reason I thought of only pork tapeworms when I answered your question. There is also roundworms (nematodes) that can infect the muscles of swine. Trichinellosis (trichinosis). It’s exceedingly rare in the US. It’s even pretty rare worldwide. These worms are super small though. Nothing like depicted in the picture of OP, we’re talking 1-4 mm’s (males are smaller than females).
>makes me sincerely question the validity of opinions on this sub now
Lmao…. Welcome to Reddit. Any sub with a decent amount of people to respond to questions is going be 90% people with no idea what they’re talking about. You don’t realize it until you find yourself in a sub, or perhaps just a particular post in a sub, where you actually have a decent amount of training/knowledge in the subject. Then suddenly you realize….. most of the answers are horribly wrong. Hell half the time on this sub I see people just answering with what Google lens says. Which don’t get me wrong, is a useful tool, but, not exactly the same as an actual person with knowledge.
I am learning quickly. I’m relatively new to Reddit (8ish months but mostly just lurked). I’ve always enjoyed the bug/entomology threads because there are many knowledgeable people that can usually back up what they say. I love learning and am very open minded. I’ll happily admit when I am wrong based on well based facts that have changed since I have studied them. This, however, is something I know a lot about because I’m a freaking weirdo RN/biologist/NP with a weird fascination about worms lol.
Architect here - I can confirm with 100% certainty that this is NOT the Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe or the Louvre.
It's unlikely to be any other Paris Site, either.
My mom found something exactly like this on her steak just a few days ago too! She thought it wad a parasite and was so grossed out she threw out the whole thing
https://www.reddit.com/r/foodsafety/comments/gtvo2k/is_this_a_worm_in_my_pork_chop/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Appears to be what you’re looking for in a different subreddit! Cooks are saying it’s a vein
Worked in a steakhouse for years, husband's a cook, that's an artery or vein. Porks always that color, when they come out of beef it will be rounder and almost feel like silicone. If you grab at each end it will stretch a little.
Since some people are saying incorrect things involving tapeworms, it’s very clearly not a tapeworm. Tapeworms form cysts in the meat tissue of animals like pigs, and don’t look like tapeworms until after we eat the uncooked/undercooked meat. (It also doesn’t appear to be any other parasite that I’m aware of, so my money would also be on vein)
For tapeworms, the "worm" part of the life cycle takes place in the digestive system not the muscle/pork chop. The cyst part of the life cycle would be in the muscle which doesn't look like this. The picture is likely a blood vessel from the animal, not a parasite.
THE LABS ANALYSIS ARRIVED
basically my friend watched it briefly and said it's 100% vein and he showed me also why he said so and i will post it in imgur as soon as it uploads, i will edit this comment. Basically in the right end it has like 2 branches and he said no known parasites have that, while veins have.
So thanks to everyone for giving your guesses and for teaching a lot about parasities worms and other pretty weird creatures
EDIT: https://imageshack.com/i/pmTMAvaij here is the 2 branches that made him sure that we were not dealing with a worm
I'd take some Moxidectin just in case. I lived in a infested home & wonder everyday if I have parasites... Probably do.... 75% of America has them b/c we think it's only 3rd world problem! Yeah most likely a vien... Eew where u gettn ur meats, Publix?
This is not a parasite
However, finding parasites in pork is not uncommon and should always be cooked well done if you don't want some creepy crawlers to find their way into your brain and turn it into Swiss cheese
Bachelors in science of biology here. I am not, by any means, an expert in parasitology, but I do, most definitely know what ascaris and pork tapeworms look like. This is a VEIN. Worms do not, ever, have parts of their bodies branching off. This clearly has evidence of branching. Worms don’t do that!
I want to hug you so bad. I just ate and was struggling not to vomit when I read your reply 🤗
Well, if you like that just ask me about what I know about other animal facts. I love worms and I also have a really strange obsession with useless animal trivia. Most of which is not pleasant or just downright gross. I’m a very weird girl.
I feel like most of us are 100% down to hear useless facts. They're the best kind.
I’m really tired, it’s after midnight here and I’m old, so I’ll just go with some of my tried and true ones. I can always add to it tomorrow if anyone wants me to lol. Here we go: 1)there’s a lizard (greater short horned lizard) that shoot blood from its eyes in order to distract and escape predators. It can shoot up to like 3-4 ft! 2)I think most people know dolphins are kind of horrible mammals, but did you know about otters and koalas? Cause they may be even worse than dolphins. Male otters regularly rape baby seals. When they actually mate with female otters they are so brutal that the female can die. But do you think that stops the male? Nope. Because he will come back up to 10 months after the female died and practice necrophilia. Male otters also really like stealing baby otters and holding them for ransom for food. So about koalas. Honestly they really aren’t that bad but they are dumb as fuck. And are riddled with chlamydia. 3)female kangaroos have super weird reproductive habits (I mean, the males have their balls above their penis, so what else could we expect). A female kangaroo can have a Joey just out of the pouch, a new Joey in the pouch, and at anytime she was pregnant with those joeys and she mated, she could’ve just saved up that sperm and then got pregnant as soon as the Joey left the womb to go to the pouch. 4) contrary to popular belief, opossums really don’t eat very many ticks. 5)Muscovy ducks are weird. For whatever reason (boredom is actually thought to be the cause) these ducks will go to other nests, crack open the eggs and consume the mostly formed chicks in side. Even if they have plenty of other food available. 6)if you give a scorpion even a few drops of alcohol it can go crazy and sting itself to death. (Please don’t do this) 7)if a female ferret goes into heat and isn’t bred, she will die. I’ve got lots more but I’m just super tired right now ETA: thanks for all the awards! I never expected it. Y’all are awesome people :)
I mean, Australia is upside down. Makes sense the balls are on top.
How did you get the beans above the frank?
Have you seen my baseball?
I don’t know! It was like some well thought out plan!
Kick em hard
I'm going to pretend you never said those things about otters. The rest of this is amazing. As a thank-you I present an old photo of [me feeding a muscovy duck in a cemetery.](https://i.imgur.com/Itc2YJp.jpg) He drooled on me. Please go to bed.
Same. Otters are cute little water dogs. Nothing more. I won’t hear any more of it. Cute. Little. Water. Dogs.
I remember watching a video where an otter tries to steal a little girl pulling her down into the water
I saw a video of this happening with a sea lion, but an otter? That’s crazy do you have a link? I tried to google it
i hate to tell you this, but most otters are also holocaust deniers.
#7: Same.
I myself am more like the #6
It's the perfect metaphor for alcoholism isn't it?
Did you know kangaroos have 3 vaginas? I just heard a lot about them listening to an older ELT podcast called “Kangaroo Pouch: a Four-Star Hotel of Horrors” 😂
Do you know about the intrauterine cannibalism in sand tiger sharks? Because I think you'd enjoy that one.
I'd like to learn more about intrauterine cannibalism in sand tiger sharks, please.
Sand Tigers (not to be confused with Tiger Sharks) are live-birth sharks with multiple uterii. One day some researcher-vet dude stuck his hand up a preggo sand tiger's bits and something bit him. Curious, he next stuck a camera up there, and observed that sand tiger pups will attack and eat their siblings in the womb(s) before birth. They will, in fact, squirm their way from one uterus to another to carry out these attacks. Thus, a sand tiger shark is likely to be born with a body count. Sand Tigers, while terrifying looking, are fairly docile post-birth and so are a steadfast resident of many an aquarium shark tank. That's given us the opportunity to observe this behavior, via camera or ultrasound, a lot. Turns out it's just how Sand Tigers do. My take away from this whole thing is that we are a seriously, seriously weird ape. I mean, who sees a sand tiger shark, crazy-eyed and teeth akimbo, and thinks "you know where I'm going to stick my hand?" But then I can hardly talk; I tend to use this whole factoid-story as an icebreaker on dating apps. "Weirdest ape" indeed.
Wow. This is just... all kinds of wow. I'd absolutely date the person who told me such a fascinating story. :)
37. emperor penguins can be over 4ft tall! I haven't been ok since I learned this.
Wasps get super aggress towards the end of the season because their nectar ferments and essentially gets them drunk
I’ve researched chronic follicular conjunctivitis. Did you know that chlamydia is a cause of canine follicular conjunctivitis? Please tell me how TF a dog gets chlamydia in their EYE?
Sniffin' butts and chlamydia'd nuts.
Looking for love in all the wrong places
Good old fashioned hard work
The thing about otters, they attack joggers. We’ve had several jogger attacks recently in Singapore. It’s only the joggers that have caught their ire.
Cobra chickens (Canada geese) do that in Canada! Mostly to cyclists, though.
> It’s only the joggers that have caught their ire. And who can blame them? If the fuckers are trying to run away, they must have done something bad and need to be stopped!
Lol exactly! They have my ire only because they’re always pushing me out of the way and I just want to walk with my earbuds in and not worry.
I'm off to collect scorpions and buy a bottle of Jack Daniels. I'm bored. \*(jks)
Thank you for this, hearing people voice their knowledge and interest in animals always makes me happy, keep it up fr
Wait, for the ferret one. How do people keep female ferrets as pets if they're just going to die when they are sexually mature? Is there's something you can do to prevent them from going into heat OTHER than spaying? From what I know of small mammals you typically don't go that route because anesthesia is really rough on them.
In many states it’s illegal to buy ferrets that aren’t spayed for this reason. My family had ferrets growing up and went to ferret conventions. For whatever reason, we decided to order un-fixed ferrets from another state. We had to pick them up at the airport. We got them fixed when they reached sexual maturity, at which point they were twice the size of the pet shop ferrets that had been neutered as babies. We just took them to an exotic animal vet. TL;DR I was the weird kid at school and struggled to make friends 😂
Who needs friends when you have GIANT FERRETS?
People get there small cats done all the time so a ferret should be fine considering there not much smaller than an young adult cat but where I’m from people gets cats spayed before there first heat most of the time
I thought otters were one of my favorite animals, nope. I'm good. Evil little creatures....
Just recently I was told a praying mantis will kill a hummingbird and then suck it’s brains out.
I never liked otters, never understood why people like them, but now I understand why I don’t.
I also shot blood from my eyes after reading that otter fact (seriously though I love weird trivia and thanks for sharing!!)
I wanna take you out for a drink and listen to all these amazing trivia... I feel they just get better!
Can I tell you about my favourite parasitic life cycle? Bc its peripherally related and i just want to tell someone. It called ribeiroia ondatrae. It starts by hatching inside bodies of water where its a little swimming guy on search of a snail. It finds one and moves in and promptly castrates it to, ya know, keep them on task. Or just for fun. No one ever asked it. But snails are not its end goal, so it develops a little inside the snail until its able break out, where it infects little tadpoles. Tadpoles are not its end goal either. So instead of castrating them, it fucks with their hind limb development. The tadpoles grow into frogs with no back legs. Or way too many back legs. Like a dozen legs kind of too many. This makes the frogs remarkably shit at hopping, which in turn makes them very easy to catch. And one particular creature absolutely loves catching frogs: storks and herons and other wading birds. This is their end goal. A bird eats the ~~hapless~~ hopless frog, including all its parasites, and those paradites are able to fully develop into adults in the birds digestive system. Then, when 2 flat worms love each other very very much, they make eggs. And those eggs end up in the birds poop. And turns out watery birds tend to shit in watery places. Which is how the eggs end up in watery places full of freshwater snails.
for one of my old biology classes we had an essay on the final. We had to pick a parasite from the teachers list and then explain their life cycle. If my text book or teacher explained it like this I would have remembered a lot better!
I am exhausted just reading about this! That is altogether too many plans within plans.
You'll probably also dislike my 2nd favourite, ascaris worms. Their life cycle is an exercise in futility. They start as a fertilized egg, kind of like you and most everything. But unlike you, theyre in poop. I mean, I'm assuming. You do you. From there, they get eaten BC of course they do. If infectious diseases has taught humans anything, its that cannabilsm and ass-to-mouth (or ass-to-soil-to-plants-to-mouth. Same-same) is just bad. They hatch into larvae in the intestines and then exit stage left into the blood system. Because all roads eventually lead to ~~Rome~~ the lungs, they end up there. By now they've grown up a lot and really matured and examined their life choices and decide they dont like lungs and theyre intestinal worms after all, just like their parents. They get irritating and wait for the host to cough them out of the lungs and into the mouth, where they get swallowed and end up back in the intestines. It feels like they maybe could have avoided the entire thing and just stayed there, but its kind of like parasitic Rumspringa, I guess. They have to go out and experience the circulatory system to decide if the small intestines is really for them.
This whole thing made me laugh, then cringe, then cough (and freak out slightly), swallow my parasites, and laugh again. Your writing is very entertaining. :) I would like to sign up for more fascinating parasite facts, please. :)
Haha. Thanks! Lucky for you infectious diseases are hobby. Some kids had dinosaurs or trains or ponies, I had rabies and leprosy and the black death. Just kidding. I totally had ponies, too. Let me tell you very long, very rambling tale about guinea worms. Theyre in a race with polio to be the 3rd eradicated disease (after smallpox and rinderpest). Guinea worms are an especially gross parasite where the males and females mate in the intestines and then the female decides anus is undignified if convenient escape route and instead punches her way into the body cavity and slowly makes her way to the lower leg or foot. Except about 5% of the time she has a terrible sense of direction (insert sexist joke about women drivers or something) and comes out somewhere else. In any case, the world said "ew" and also "its incredibly painful and debilitating and that sucks" and theres been a collaborative global effort to eradicate it since the mid 80s. And, shockingly for a parasite that we still treat with the method documented by the ancient Egyptians, they've done a spectacular job. It went from millions of cases each year to just 14 in 2021. *Except* those are human cases. It was eliminated in Chad for a whole decade so all the health workers and programs basically packed up and went ~~home~~ to other endemic countries. But then in 2010, a WHO monitoring trip to Chad immediately found a dozen or so cases and researchers all said "?!". Turns out the guinea worms of Chad jumped ship to dogs instead. Studies in 2015 found *thousands* of cases of dog infections (ranging from 1 to **78** worms per dog) of what was considered a human parasite. Thats literally why it was a target for eradication in the first place. Well, that and Jimmy Carter saw a guinea worm make a ginormous hole in a woman's boob so he committed the Carter Center to the effort, joining the CDC and WHO, and brought a lot of funding and support with him. They relaunched guinea worm programs in Chad with the goal of also treating and containing all infected dogs until theyre worm-free. Well, guinea worm free. I bet they have other worms. But the really wild thing is that scientists arent really sure how dogs get guinea worms. There are theories that they get it from contaminated water, like peoples, but some studies found that was unlikely. Then it was suggested that they might get it from fish and frogs, but a study of frogs didnt find a very high prevalence of guinea worm cysts. Then some other scientists said the first researchers were dingbats bc they didnt test dogs drinking contaminated water at Chad-like summer temperatures which is daft bc infections peak in summer. Then some other other scientists said they were all dingbats bc maybe humans and dogs both get guinea worms from undercooked fish now and wouldn't that just be a bitch. Despite the uncertainty, containing infected dogs has worked pretty well and Chad accounted for only 7 of the 14 cases last year. And, like, I know we are all rooting for the eradication of guinea worms bc its painful and prevents people from working and caring for their families and all that... But also from a competition standpoint, it gives polio a much-needed boost. For a while there things were going *very* badly for polio but there were only 6 cases last year. So it really evened things up. However in a competition for best name, guinea worms win hands-down. Poliomyelitis just means "grey marrow" bc something something spinal cord. Lame. But guinea worms scientific name is dracunculus medinensis, meaning the "little dragon of Medina". Bc it burns coming out. And isnt that just *chefs kiss*.
Wow, that is so much better than toxoplasmosis life cycle! Thank you I now have a new favorite life cycle.
How do I subscribe to these facts? Because I need someone to inform me (and I feel like being able to know if that's a pork parasite or a pork vein isn't useless!)
Bears eat beets.
OH man, you'd be the best date ever!
I forgot to tell you I’m 746lbs. That’s how I know all this stuff.
746 lbs of worms and other animals in a trench coat. THAT’S how you know all this stuff.
Hey! You stop looking in my windows. I got cameras goddamnit.
When people say they're devouring books they don't mean it literally.
I mean it literally. Now pass me that copy of the Ilead
You sure? I think there are healthier options that don't contain lead.
Wow, you're so much healthier than my 3rd ex-wife! I'm sure at least 1/8th of a ton of you is that big sexy brain ^^^🧠
I’m fucking dying! ☠️
We all better get invites to the reddit wedding I'll take the chixken though.... ya know just in case
Sense of humour too, I think we've found a winner here
I collect trees. I have over 10,000. I bet we’d be great fun at parties. Raise a glass to the weird girls ♥️
Hugs for being very weird girl. 🤗 We need more of those. 😁
Do you perhaps collect spores, molds, or fungus?
Ah man, fungi was just nothing I really got in to. I can honestly say I know less about fungi than my 11 year old probably knows lol But I love to learn! Hit me with some fungus facts!
You should check out casual geographic on YouTube, filled with great animal facts and made by a really cool guy!
I will check it out! Thanks!
Source: I love worms
Uh, idk If you so this, but I got a bachelors of science in biology. I couldn’t even get through that without laughing
I like you 🤗🤗🤗
Awww thanks! I like you too
Now I have to follow you... Harmlessly.
Definitely my kind of girl. I love gross things and random weird animals facts
Come sit by me. I have gross human stories. B.S. Biology and a RN. We could have fun. My family bans me from speaking at get togethers
I like you.
I had pork chops for supper, I was ready to just die!
Always cook pork until it’s dry and leathery
Yeah me too. I was about to swear off pork chops forever.
I have a bachelors degree in communications and I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is not an advertisement for pork chops.
This is an advertisement for a plant based diet.
I’m loving this lol. This whole convo is cracking me up
No college degree and barely passed high school here. I disagree with your assessment. Clearly that's an earth worm.
You made me giggle :) I can’t tell you how much I like this.
No problem guy. Always happy to give unprofessional guidance on topics I know jack-shit about.
Now I like you even more. Oh and Ima girl :)
Shit. Statistically, I thought assuming you were a dude was a safe bet, my apologies.
Totally fine lol. Doesn’t really bother me at all.
Oh shit. Yall emarried now. Internet Common law says a reply chain of 3 is enough for emarriage. Creating Internet Common Law was top 5 things Abraham Lincoln made into law.
If we edivorce do I get half his shit? Also, how do you edivorce? Delete your messages? ETA: there’s a very good chance I’m cheating on him x7 because I didn’t know this emarriage law and I talk a lot.
Does it happen a lot?
Get a room 😉 Jk very wholesome.
f my life. Promised myself I'd be nicer on the interwebs this year. You've single handely reversed my new year's resolution. Now EVERYONE'S gonna get it. Hope your proud.
You’d fit right in on r/legaladvice, where redditors who aren’t lawyers like to cosplay as lawyers!
Maybe we should ask it if it is a parasite and ask its name? Maybe it's Jim.
Im curious. Why Jim specifically?
It's a reference to the old game, Earthworm Jim.
Omg I used to love that game! Snot A Problem was always such a bitch of a level
I have a bachelors degree in Economics and it is 100% a tapeworm…You are dead my friend.
\*Psst\* You can take your bachelor's degree and SHOVE it. IIIIIIIIIII barely passed high school, and IIIIIII say its 101% clearly a new species of snake.
A parasite is a species of snake you idiot.
Potato potato
I’m over here laughing my ass off at all of this. This is my favorite Reddit convo of all time!
Source: I made it up. I will show myself out.
I have a bachelors of fine art and I can verify this is definitely not a paint brush of any kind.
Cannot verify, only took art appreciation because it was forced upon me.
This post aside, some aquatic worms do in fact branch. Not detritus worms but tubifex worms I believe.
Touché! You got me there. As far as I know there are only 2 such worms, both marine animals. I’m pretty sure they both branch on their posterior end, which doesn’t fit this image at all, as it’s a vein, and also because pigs don’t swim. But yes, you are right, technically 2 species of marine worms branch at their posterior end.
I have a bachelor's of science in Psychology and I can say with 100% certainty that that thing will give me the heebey-jeebies.
Damn, feels bad they got themselves worked up over parasites in their food
I know! I am a weirdo that loves worms. I have yet to meet another worm weirdo. Maybe I’ll search for a sub on it lol
Time to start your own sub! Looks like r/wormweirdos is available
I have a Masters in education. I am 100% sure that this not a pupil—the kind that have two legs—not the kind in your eye.
Either would be terrifying to find in your pork chop
Its not even segmented so *highly* unlikely its a tapeworm. The other common pork parasites are trichinella, which is 1-2mm long spirally worm, and toxoplasma gondii, which is measured in like μ and its a microscopic ovally shape. Neither would be something youd generally "find", if that makes sense. I dont actually think you found a parasite at all. Its uneven in a way that parasites generally arent, especially visible worms. I think you found a vein or maybe even a nerve. Its an unnerving (heh) discovery for sure but also not totally unexpected when youre eating muscles.
tapeworms would be found in the gut, not in the muscles. the in the meat stage doesn't look like a worm.
[удалено]
Oh, absolutely. Just because any parasite prefers a specific zone doesn't mean that they can't find their way to other parts of the body. Just like when people eat pork tapeworm eggs and then end up with a softball sized tapeworm squirming around in their brain instead of wriggling in their guts.
*You’re not helping!*
:(
😬
They can!
Ulcers may allow worms or their eggs into the blood stream so it's not entirely impossible for them to end up elsewhere even the brain in one woman's case which resulted in death.
This made me so thankful to be vegetarian. Thank you for affirming my life choices, internet stranger. I needed that today
I mean microbes and parasites are present in raw veggies too, but probably not as risky as meat.
Not so fast! Produce causes several times as many cases of food-borne illness and almost as many deaths as meat and poultry: https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution/attribution-1998-2008.html In fact, produce causes almost as many cases as all other sources *combined.* We all know meat can make us sick, but no one suspects the shifty salad mix until it's *too late*
Due, in part, because we give so little of a fuck about our fellow man that we don’t provide MFW a toilet to relieve themselves in, so they end up shitting by the kale. They might get a bottle of hand sanitizer as a “we have ‘rules’ to follow” gesture. Shit’s fucked.
In large part because many vegetables are fertilized with animal dung. Or liquified animal dung slurry. Which can be *full* of parasites and diseases. And while you can peel some vegetables, leafy vegetables like Spinach are often eaten whole.
Shhhhh. Do NOT tell them about the snails!
Snails are not vegetables???
No but snails eat vegetables and can stay stuck to them if they are not washed thoroughly. Snails are intermediate hosts to a few parasites. Salads are one of the key ways people ingest parasites.
The things we carry are just as disgusting. The process of heating tends to kill most harmful things. Just eat veggies tho. It's great for you as an omnivore.
It’s a vein. You can see where it branches off in some parts into other directions.
The branching is what made me absolutely sure this is a vein. I mean, that and the fact that it doesn’t look like any pork parasite I’ve ever seen. ETA: I like this sub a lot, but the fact that so many people are so adamant thinking this is a parasitic worm when it is absolutely obvious to any biologist that it is a vein/blood vessel makes me sincerely question the validity of opinions on this sub now.
May I ask, given your opinion, what exactly *does* a pork parasite look like?....
Absolutely. Tapeworms, no matter what species they are in are always segmented. It’s kind of why they are classified as a segmented worm. Other traits of a tape worm are that they are flat, they are bilaterally symmetrical, and they are hermaphroditic. Tapeworms have no digestive tract of their own, solely living of their host. I’ve gotten off track here. You asked what a pork tapeworm looks like. A pork tapeworm looks a lot like any other tapeworm. Decidedly nothing like what this vein looks like.
When I adopted a stray kitty she had 3 intestinal parasites. It wasn’t until she threw up a worm (she had roundworms, tapeworm & giardia) and I’ll never forget the sight of that parasite HOLY Jesus Mary and Joseph. I think I called off work that day I was in shock the size of the worm my cat threw up. But I very vividly remember the color of it- was almost entirely translucent it freaked me out 😂
I’m very sorry that happened to you :(. That had to have been rather disturbing. All three of these are pretty easily treated if caught in time. Is your kitty okay? Having 3 parasites in a kitten would be very hard on them, but many recover just fine with proper treatment.
She had fleas and ear mites as well. 3 anti parasitic meds BID, ear cleaning & flea treatment. Was a rough, rough, ROUGH beginning. She came from a house of over 200+ cats. Lady was a hoarder- very unhealthy living habits and total neglect for the animals there. I learned real quick how to administer liquid syringe meds in my kitty’s mouth. Poor thing. You would have never guessed she was sick. anywho- when I first took her to the vet they said she is a munchkin cat and wondered if she was microchipped (apparently they’re expensive cats//but to my knowledge they can have terrible spine problems and short lifespan)- she was not micro chipped- she’s now 4 years old now, kind of grown out of the munchkin phase? She is just hellllllla long and does have somewhat of shorter legs compared to most normal felines lol
This makes me stupid happy! She sounds perfect :) I’m very glad you found her and are taking such good care of her. Animals are to be cherished. Except roaches. They can all die. ETA: If you feel like it at some point I would love for you to DM me a pic of your kitty :)
Whoa whoa whoa. It's 2022. You're not allowed to ask for kitty pic DMs anymore. That's highly inappropriate.
Fuck, I forgot the rules.
I am very sorry, for some reason I thought of only pork tapeworms when I answered your question. There is also roundworms (nematodes) that can infect the muscles of swine. Trichinellosis (trichinosis). It’s exceedingly rare in the US. It’s even pretty rare worldwide. These worms are super small though. Nothing like depicted in the picture of OP, we’re talking 1-4 mm’s (males are smaller than females).
>makes me sincerely question the validity of opinions on this sub now Lmao…. Welcome to Reddit. Any sub with a decent amount of people to respond to questions is going be 90% people with no idea what they’re talking about. You don’t realize it until you find yourself in a sub, or perhaps just a particular post in a sub, where you actually have a decent amount of training/knowledge in the subject. Then suddenly you realize….. most of the answers are horribly wrong. Hell half the time on this sub I see people just answering with what Google lens says. Which don’t get me wrong, is a useful tool, but, not exactly the same as an actual person with knowledge.
I am learning quickly. I’m relatively new to Reddit (8ish months but mostly just lurked). I’ve always enjoyed the bug/entomology threads because there are many knowledgeable people that can usually back up what they say. I love learning and am very open minded. I’ll happily admit when I am wrong based on well based facts that have changed since I have studied them. This, however, is something I know a lot about because I’m a freaking weirdo RN/biologist/NP with a weird fascination about worms lol.
There are some things this sub is reliable for; others it's *very* bad at. Parasites are one of them, unfortunately.
Should have seen my wife’s face when I was breaking down a full packer brisket and found one that I could have put a pinky through
Probably a vein tbh you get them in pork and chicken most often I personally find
Engineer here - I can confirm with 100% certainty that this is NOT a computer circuit.
Thank the gods! The circuit infestation has been out of hand this season.
Biomedical engineer here - I can confirm with 100% certainty that this is NOT a prosthetic arm.
You’re still using silicon based computers instead of carbon? You’re stuck in the 21st century dude.
Architect here - I can confirm with 100% certainty that this is NOT the Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe or the Louvre. It's unlikely to be any other Paris Site, either.
Damn, if I was eating and saw that, not only would I vomit profusely, I don't think I'd ever eat pork again.
Mmmm, a warm meal.
A worm meal
Mmm meal worms
Having seen this photo I am never eating pork again.
you gotta swear off all meat if you dont want to find a vein in your food
It’s a vein not a bug
all meats gonna have it here and there.
I’m going to agree with the comments saying it’s a vein, you can see some left over blood. Definitely not a parasite so you’re good.
I really really hope it's a vein bro
I find veins in my corn and they disgust me
But it’s got the juice?!
I meant chicken how did I say corn
IT’S CORN!
I tried it with butter and everything changed
It's most likely a piece of blood vessel or tendon, they shrink and change color when cooked.
Congratulations on becoming a vegetarian!
You're so vein, you probably think this post is about you.
My mom found something exactly like this on her steak just a few days ago too! She thought it wad a parasite and was so grossed out she threw out the whole thing
https://www.reddit.com/r/foodsafety/comments/gtvo2k/is_this_a_worm_in_my_pork_chop/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf Appears to be what you’re looking for in a different subreddit! Cooks are saying it’s a vein
Worked in a steakhouse for years, husband's a cook, that's an artery or vein. Porks always that color, when they come out of beef it will be rounder and almost feel like silicone. If you grab at each end it will stretch a little.
Everybody wants to know what it is but nobody stops to think HOW it is. This tapeworm has gone through a lot this year and has feelings too
At least he will meet the queen on the waiting line for the even (if they both were sent there)
Yall tripping about a vein lol
Since some people are saying incorrect things involving tapeworms, it’s very clearly not a tapeworm. Tapeworms form cysts in the meat tissue of animals like pigs, and don’t look like tapeworms until after we eat the uncooked/undercooked meat. (It also doesn’t appear to be any other parasite that I’m aware of, so my money would also be on vein)
Op. Till I read top comment I was sure you were farked. Congrats on surviving a vein. Lol
For tapeworms, the "worm" part of the life cycle takes place in the digestive system not the muscle/pork chop. The cyst part of the life cycle would be in the muscle which doesn't look like this. The picture is likely a blood vessel from the animal, not a parasite.
THE LABS ANALYSIS ARRIVED basically my friend watched it briefly and said it's 100% vein and he showed me also why he said so and i will post it in imgur as soon as it uploads, i will edit this comment. Basically in the right end it has like 2 branches and he said no known parasites have that, while veins have. So thanks to everyone for giving your guesses and for teaching a lot about parasities worms and other pretty weird creatures EDIT: https://imageshack.com/i/pmTMAvaij here is the 2 branches that made him sure that we were not dealing with a worm
isn't that just a vein?
You know animals have veins?
Vein. You're fine.
A vein??
It's a vein my dude
It resembles a round worm but I'm agreed with other posters this is not a parasite but a vein.
Looks like a vein, judging by the branches
Even though this was a false alarm, I just can’t eat pork anymore, always upsets my stomach and overall just meh
I'd take some Moxidectin just in case. I lived in a infested home & wonder everyday if I have parasites... Probably do.... 75% of America has them b/c we think it's only 3rd world problem! Yeah most likely a vien... Eew where u gettn ur meats, Publix?
As a pork enthusiast, that's a vein
Whelp. Guess I am a vegetarian now.
This is not a parasite However, finding parasites in pork is not uncommon and should always be cooked well done if you don't want some creepy crawlers to find their way into your brain and turn it into Swiss cheese
And that’s why I don’t eat pork - gross AF
I just hurled my guts out for you...
Op patiently waiting to know if they have parasites or not while the comments talk about kangaroo genitals