2014 Photomicrography Competition

This is a female parasitic worm of the species can infect people who eat raw meat with trichinosis. This is the free swimming adult phase of the life cycle which lives in the gut of an infected host. There it reproduces producing eggs that are shed in feces. In another phase of the life cycle the worms encyst themselves in muscle tissue where they are passed to animals - including humans - that eat the tissue.