A few days ago I wrote about the tiny little worm that crawls out of your dog poo and buries itself and family in the roots of grass and along comes mother cow eats the grass and the worms which causes mother cow great distress as she will lose her unborn mini cow! Well along comes 112 year old Percy today to Mitchell who has not been seen for a few weeks, truthfully many thought he had passed on but no he turned up today like a bad old penny to explain why he had been away! The clues were obvious he had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was brandishing a grubby old bandage on his arm telling all and sundry he had been bitten by a sodding horsefly and his bleeden arm had swollen up so much he could not do any work (why not Purse you have two arms) anyway he seems to have had a rough time especially when his daughter told him “I am not going to take your dog out for a walk any more unless you pay me five quid each time” Percy goes berserk “I can’t afford that, I am a sick man” Daughter retorts “You take the dog out you need the exercise and the walk” I am on daughters side of course he needed the walk” So he finishes the conversation by saying “So I took the effing dog out myself and saved thirty quid, she must think I am stupid or summit” I am still on the daughters side.

Anyway I remember getting bitten by a bloody horsefly and the sting and itching seems to last forever but imagine this; You are on holiday and a small deerfly lands on you for a couple of seconds a worm larva drops from the deerfly arse onto your skin or clothing and burrows deep underneath your skin and it migrates through your system and settles down in your bloody EYE and could cause you a swelling as big as an EGG and is extremely itchy and sodding painful. Take a look at the pictures mother, I feel sick! I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, well perhaps that’s not entirely true where can I get a couple of these deerfly?

Read on:

Eye worm, (species Loa loa), common parasite of humans and other primates in central and western Africa, a member of the phylum Nematodes. It is transmitted to humans by the deerfly, Chrysops (the intermediate host), which feeds on primate blood. When the fly alights on a human victim, the worm larva drops onto the new host’s skin and burrows underneath. The larva migrates through the bloodstream, commonly locating in the eye or in other tissues just under the skin. The adult worm is 3—6 cm (1.2—2.4 inches) long. The movement of the worm beneath the skin may cause itching or sometimes swellings as large as a hen’s egg.
Within the human host the adult female worm produces large numbers of microscopic, active embryos called microfilaria, which enter the host’s blood or lymph vessels. Some of these are ingested by a deerfly as it sucks blood and, after about two weeks, complete a series of growth stages. As infective larvae, they move to the insect’s proboscis to await an opportunity to transfer to a new human host.