blackworms..... eww?

[Danny]

hey i just bought some black worms for my larvae axolotl, And there segmented bodies make them loo A LOT, almost too much, like the ones i find in my patents colon in the hospital i work at.
these suckers cant live in people.....................CAN THEY??!!!!!!!

[Brandon1393]

hey danny get back with me please

[Michael]

Uhhh...I...don't think they can...because don't they root their lower bodies into sand/mud and wave their heads around in the current?

[John Clare]

No they are not parasitic or able to live in the gut. They are a free-living annelid worm that feeds on the mud and detritus at the bottom of ponds. The guts from segmented worms like this generally look similar (even earthworms can produce nasty looking innards).

[Chris Michaels]

There are also almost no parasitic annelids (from the Latin for 'ring' to describe the segments)...the worms that you find in patients are probably nematodes or cestodes (Platyhelminthes). The former are not segmented, and the latter look like they have segments, but are different from the segments of an annelid.