The simulium fly thrive near fast-flowing rivers alongside humans who use the rivers for their water supply. Onchocerca volvulus lives in the fly's saliva glands and pass into humans when bitten. These larvae mature into breeding adults and produce thousands more larvae. They can live off the tissue inside the human host for years. They can be seen crawling under the skin or swimming inside the eye. When not feeding off the host they wait near the skin so that they may enter another simulium fly as it bites, to invade another human host later on.
If they die inside the host without being carried away, the larva corpse causes an infection. This will eventually happen in the eye, leading to certain blindness. But this doesn't matter to the larva because it does not kill the host organism.
The beautiful symmetry of this process, and they remarkable way O. volvulus has of continuing its life cycle can only point to the beneficence of an intelligent creator, don't you agree?
2007-07-19
03:14:50
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10 answers
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asked by
Bad Liberal
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Religion & Spirituality