Trematodes: My rant on human behaviors

by LovelessSummer
  • May 8, 2010
  • Article / Essay

The Trematodes are a Class of flatworms in the Phylum Platyhelminthes. They are internal parasites of mollusks and vertebrates. Most trematodes have a complex life cycle with at least two hosts, the first of which is usually a mollusc.

Trematodes, a parasite I doubt many of us have acquainted ourselves with. Lately, I've an obsession with them, or so I fear. Creepy little critters they are, deceptive, manipulating, and down right nasty. For those of us who don't know, here is a brief and simple explanation of what they are and what they do.

Spoiler! :
Trematodes start out in a birds belly, have gotten there from the bird mistakenly eating the parasite in its food or otherwise. So, one day, if the bird drops its business in a pond, chances are the trematodes would be in the pond also if they were already in the bird's stomach. You following me? Good. Okay, so while the birds are in the pond it stumbles upon a poor snail. The Trematode, sensing shelter, burrows itself inside the snail's left eye, eating it's way down to where it stores itself in the snails stomach. Now, as if our poor snail friend didn't have enough problem with itself suddenly being blind in it's left eye, all of a sudden it becomes terribly hungry. I'm sure we all can guess why: Where the snails stomach previously was is now a bunch of hungry trematodes. Once getting bored with the snail, the trematodes crawl their way into the birds blind eye and start eating the eye from the inside, making the eye twitch. When they make their way up to eat the eyeball, the trematodes excrete some chemicals that make the eyeball turn different colors. Beautiful, right? One day, a bird flies over the pond and sees this twitching color changing snail and thinks: Man, that sure looks tasty. Thinking this, it swoops down and eats the trematode infested snail, and, just like that, the trematodes end up back in the bird's stomach(funny thing is, the trematodes don't hurt the bird at all) and the circle repeats itself over and over again.

Isn't it amazing how nature works? Myself, I'd like to suppose that the trematodes have some sort of age long deal going on with the birds: You give me a ride to a nice warm pond and I'll give you a twitching multi-colored snack. Lovely! Right?

- - - - - -

We are all Trematodes, or know someone that is in fact a Trematodes. No, not infected with them but are the parasite their selves. Don't believe me? Well, let me ask you this question: Have you ever, or know someone who has ever been ganged up on and picked on? Have you ganged up on another and picked on them? Joined in some group teasing perhaps? Been the subject of a group teasing maybe?

Trematodes, as you hopefully know by now, are bullies. They pick on the poor snail and mess with it's brain until they get bored and decide to kill it off and move on to a fresh new victim. Humans, believe it or not, are the same.

The Trematode:

The goal of most every bully is to see their victim cry, run away, break down, or call for their mommy. Your typical playground bully, the stuck-up head cheerleader, your mean jocks, football jerks, etc. are all my human classification of the Trematode. The ringleader of the whole down spiral of destruction. They start it, they end it, and it only ends when they get bored; when their victim finally cracks-or starts twitching and changing colors.

The Bird:

The goal of the bird is to not get hurt, to not become that poor worm. The bird just follows along with the Trematode's plans and tries not to get hurt. It just wants to stay out of trouble. Your birds are usually the Trematode's groupies: you know the type. They just follow along and laugh when instructed to.

The Snail:

Poor snails. They are just the ones being picked on. What did they do to the Trematode? Nothing, they just hang around doing nothing to anybody. What did they do wrong, you might ask. Well, they were weak. They had no defenses, too nice, no friends... you get my point. They had no backbone! No one to beat up the Trematode-or beat them up their selves- and bring them down a notch. When everything is said and done, this poor fellow is the one taking all the hits.

Okay, so that's all for now! Just a little rant I had the liking to type up. Even so, I have a little homework assignment for you all: The next time you're at school, the park, mall, movie theatre or anything, try to pick out the birds, trematodes, and snails of the people around you. Goodbye.

Comments & reviews · 3
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Rosendorn
Review
Rosendorn wrote a review · Sat May 15, 2010 9:23 pm

Hey Loveless

I agree with Navita about this being a bit point-blank. That can be good for author's notes, but it's not really good for anything you're wanting to use to change minds or reach people with, even in nonfic.

I'd suggest cutting everything after this paragraph:

We are all Trematodes, or know someone that is in fact a Trematodes. No, not infected with them but are the parasite their selves. Don't believe me? Well, let me ask you this question: Have you ever, or know someone who has ever been ganged up on and picked on? Have you ganged up on another and picked on them? Joined in some group teasing perhaps? Been the subject of a group teasing maybe?


This paragraph is a really good starter for this rant. You're making us think, look at ourselves, match human behaviour with nature's behaviour. If you keep the story at this tone, asking questions, making us wonder just how much better we are than flatworms (which is a pretty fantastic angle. It fascinates us with sick curiosity), then you've got something that can make us really wonder about humanity.

Good start, though. Just need to make this a bit more subtle.

Hope this helped, and PM me if you have any questions!

~Rosey

User avatar
Navita
Review
Navita wrote a review · Sat May 08, 2010 8:23 am

Oh, that was funny and very informative indeed. At first, I wasn't going to bother reading the thing in the spoiler, but the scientist in me reared its head and told me to go ahead and reading - and I learnt something new!

I didn't particularly care for the way you spelt out the message for us, practically shoving it down my throat about how the trematodes are the bullies, the snails are the victims, and the birds are the ones who do nothing. I really don't think all those paragraphs were needed at all, actually, where you really went ahead and expanded on the idea - from the point of view of the intelligent reader, all it takes is for you to say in your title 'Trematodes - the Bullies in Nature' and we get the whole idea just from reading the info in the spoiler, without you needing to spell it out for us like that.

Anyway, an interesting read, and if and when I go to France, I'll stay away from the colour-changing escargot!



Now I realize that there is no righteous path, it’s just people trying to do their best in a world where it is far too easy to do your worst.
— Castiel