Can anyone ID this?

[Chris Dee]

Not sure if this is a worm or nematode (other?), but unable to find anything similar on the web. Lives life at full throttle, observed for some time but wouldn't stay still for a decent shot. Odd behaviour, freed itself from this clump of detritus only to get entangled in another, and another, and so on. Any ideas?
.

.

Untitled-1.jpg (87.17 KiB) Viewed 3659 times

[75RR]

Not sure if this is a worm or nematode (other?), but unable to find anything similar on the web. Lives life at full throttle, observed for some time but wouldn't stay still for a decent shot. Odd behaviour, freed itself from this clump of detritus only to get entangled in another, and another, and so on. Any ideas?

Nematode infected by fungal parasites?

http://website.nbm-mnb.ca/mycologywebpa ... sites.html

[Chris Dee]

Seems a bit too uniform and in one plane for it to be fungal, can't rule it out though.

[Greg Howald]

That's a fungusamongus. If the poor thing could feel an itch it would be going insane.
Greg

[Chris Dee]

[apochronaut]

Is it possible it is suffering from a dramatic change in osmotic pressure and the contents around it are itself , causing it to be stuck to external organisms. Completely erratic and frantic behaviour usually preceeds bursting due to osmotic pressure in protists. This is a little more complex, so may be able to persist longer before fatal collapse. I know when I start leaking I feel pretty frantic. So far I've been able to recover; one of the perks of being slightly more complex than a worm.

[Bruce Taylor]

The chaotic thrashing is standard nematode behaviour. It's what the silly things do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpgjnXEFadg I hate getting a nematode on a slide, because will knock my poor ciliates all over the place with its brainless writhing.

I have no idea what that coating is. It's interesting, though.

[BramHuntingNematodes]

There are some wacky marine nematodes that have furry coatings, but I think you might only very rarely encounter them if not looking for them specifically.

[Chris Dee]

More scouring of books and online has yielded nothing. Chalking this one down as "Fungal?.. Weird, but move along"