I'm testing for E.Coli resistance to varying concentrations, and hence prepared an agar dish with an E.Coli lawn. Then I added 70% ethanol in a .5 cm layer on top, let it sit, and drained it.
However, one of my co-workers thought it would be funny to add a semen sample into the dish, just so i would get a shock when i checked the microscope. Obviously, the stench and the watery liquid on top of the dish gave it away. The smell was so bad I had to spray some deodorant on it. I then left it on one of the incubators and forgot about it.
When I had to use the incubator, I noticed it sitting on top, but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I set the incubator at 66 degrees Celsius (since the dish was on top actual temperature should be lower), and forgot about it again.
a week later, the water had all but evaporated (some condensation on lid of dish), and this time I noticed peculiar worms moving about the agar! They were white-yellowish, about 5mm in length, and could be seen through under strong lighting. apparently the constant heat doesn't bother them. (btw the dish was sealed with sealing tape but there was some unidentified brown gunk around the edges, probably leaky seal)
Anyone have any ideas what kind of worm it might be? Really interesting, considering the only things in the petri dish is semen, dead sperm, agar, E.Coli (unlikely to have any left over after alcohol treatment). My co-worker is just as interested and has sworn he didn't purposely contaminate it with any worms too, although he WAS working with C.Elegans worms beforehand. But C.Elegans aren't supposed to grow that big, nor are they supposed to feed on sperm and they're very susceptible to heat (even too long under a light microscope fries them).
Also these worms seem to exhibit tunneling behaviour. Quite a number of 'fissures' in the agar already.
oh and the worms only appeared after the semen was dry.
i suspect it might have been contaminated by pinworm eggs in the semen sample. but i can't seem to find photos or descriptions of adult worms
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