The common name for my animal is a roundworm. The size of a roundworm is 30 cm (12in.). The color of it is a mixture of pink and white. I know that it is a round worm because it is round. The round worms eggs are “sticky” and may be carried to the mouth by hands, or other body parts, or foods. Infection with this roundworm is extremely common, it is estimated that one quarter of the world’s population is infected, or 1500 million cases per year. They live in people’s body, and the adult roundworm is found in the lumen of the small intestine of humans. They do well living in people’s body because there are 200,000 new ones born per day for a year. They can live for 3 years in the human body. Doctors can see them by using x-rays. They are found in tropical regions.

The egg of roundworms has a relatively thick shell wall, and is highly resident to the externally environment. They are growing instead of shrinking obviously since there are so many born per year. It is contributing to the change because it lays eggs and it does not have any predators. It does not have a role in a traditional food web. It eats Semi-digested contents of the gut, although there is some evidence that they can bite the intestinal mucous membrane and eat blood and tissue fluids. They compete with the human body for food. Here are some interesting facts.

What stood out to me as I read about my animal was that it lays so many eggs per day. What I learned was, if you are infected with roundworms at times they may exit your bottom.

Author: Garrett B

Published: 02/2008

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Sources: Wikipedia http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~schisto/nematodes/ascaris.html Holt California Life Science book