/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>4680267
However, the worms often die peacefully, and only cause seizures and such - indeed, it seems tapeworms in the brain are accountable for more seizures and headaches than expected, and Taenia soliumi infection is apparently the most common parasitic disease of the central nervous system. Neurocysticercosis can also cause mental disorders, I hear a guy with it tried to surf his car (with some success. )

One extreme case is Echinococcus species. Those are tapeworms of canids, and usually pass to humans via interaction with dogs. They are interesting in that they can detect whether they're in a dog or not - if they are, they develop into adult tapeworms, and if they aren't, they form cysts, which slowly grow larger as tapeworms newly formed in their cysts go ahead and extend the cyst (E. granulosus) or make new ones. (E. multilocularis. ) Large cysts can have a radius of 50cm, filled with liters of fluid and immature worms, destruction of which will often suddenly kill the host as the immune system overreacts to the cyst fluid. Hydatid cysts are often found in liver or lungs, though they can appear elsewhere.

And if you think humans have it hard with tapeworms, whales have Hexagonoporus, reaching 30 meters in length (largest tapeworms of humans are on the 10 meter range. ) And turtles have Austramphilina elongata, which is sometimes seen in lungs and may lay eggs there to be spit out of the turtle's mouth. And while not a tapeworm, there's still Placentonema gigantissimum, a 8,5 meter long nematode that lives in whale placenta. Imagine having a loving 2D wife pregnant with your child, except 8 meters of roundworm pops out of her vagina instead.

Instead of posting some ten worms I particularly like, I might as well mention a small Ren'py game I did about them. Behold, original content (do not steal)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RFEBSLVO

Pictured is a really big ball of tapeworms, obviously.