Re: NANFA-- anchor worm in humans?

Joshua L Wiegert (jlw_at_dune.net)
Sat, 7 Feb 2004 22:21:50 -0500

Nick and all.

Either this is a different organism called an Anchor worm, or a practical
joke. Lernea spp., what you and I are calling an Anchor Worm, that shows up
all the time on cyprinids (esp. goldfish and koi) is simply not capable of
infecting a human being. Most parasites are incredibly specific to host --
evolutionarily, this makes sense. Not only are they therefore best adapted
to combat their hosts natural defense, but they're isolated on their host.
An anchor worm is just not likely to swim off a fish and breed with a
closely related species on, say, a turtle. Its more likely to breed on with
anchor worms on the same fish. This is especially true of internal
parasites, but remains an important isolating mechanism in external
parasites as well (as well as any type of organism that lives "on" another.)
I certainly can't imagine the anchor worm even surviving outside of
water....

I have only occassionally even seen it on tropical water fishes -- typically
cyprinids. Anchor worm scarcely seems able to infect tropicals, such as
cichlids, characins livebearers, etc. (Unfortunately, I've never looked
into the mechanisms that seem to prohibit it from infecting the tropicals,
its definitely not temperature.... yet its common on non-cyprinid coldwater
fish, such as bass and perch.... Something I'll have to figure out some
day.) I've hand-picked ... more anchor worms than I'd dare count from fish.
Its an effective way to prevent spread on an incoming shipment -- you remove
all the visible worms, and generally the parasite won't infect the remaining
stock. (Of course, this won't work to eradicate an infection in a
population, simply seems to limit introduction.)

The fact that it would up on the NANFA mailing list seems to point towards a
practical joke. If its not, I do appologise to John and hope he can get
everything sorted out with his own version of anchor worm (and I'll be
slightly curious to know what human-parasite has earned the same name.)
However, in the aquarium retail business, I fielded numerous questions that
were little more than practical jokes, from the guy who claimed his next
door neighboor had put a pirahna in his koi pond (which had eaten all of his
koi, and his dog, and he was afraid to go into the yard....) to the guy who
claimed that his "very expensive mouthbrooding cichlid" had mistaken his
fingertip for a fry and would not release it. (Conversely, I must admit to
occassionally giving people ... strange bits of advice to solve their
problems... But nevermind that. :)

--
end
  ____^___
><,DARWIN,>
Joshua L. Wiegert
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----- Original Message ----- From: "njz" <njz_at_clevelandmetroparks.com> To: <jday212_at_comcast.net> Cc: "NANFA" <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>; "Chris Bonar (zoo)" <cjb_at_clevelandmetroparks.com> Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 11:18 PM Subject: NANFA-- anchor worm in humans?

> John, I must say that I find this incredibly unusual. There are only a few > zoonotic diseases that transfer from fish to humans but anchor worm is > certainly not one of them! I wonder if the anchor worm that was diagnosed is > actually a different beast than the anchor worm that we find on fish. Can you > give us any symptoms of your condition? I will forward this to our list > server and a couple of other people that I know. I will get replies to you as > they come in. Good luck. > > Nick Zarlinga > > > "If we ignore nature.....maybe it'll go away." > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: John Day > To: junk1_at_fish.la.asu.edu > Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 12:37 PM > Subject: nanfa > > > Dear Sir; > > I have been diagnosed as having an Anchor worm in my body. I have not > been able to find any human cases. I am on my way to Miami, Fl. to Jackson > Memorial Hospital from Kennesaw, Ga. Jackson Memorial has a top notch parasite > division. I have had this infection for at least 7 months. My 6 year- old > daughter had a nauplius stage organism on her lip on Wednesday. > > Any info you might be able to provide me would be greatly appreciated! > > My cell # is 404-422-6760. > > > > Thank you, > > > > > > John D. Day

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