Australasian Association of Nematologists

The Nematode Rap

You will find me everywhere
in the soil, in the sea, even in mid air
plants and animals I will kill
and you'd better watch out or I'll make you ill

Heh, it's the nematode rap!

My cavity may look like a coelom but
there are no muscles round my gut
and so I think that you will feel
that we should call it a pseudocoel

Heh, it's the nematode rap!

With regards to matters sexual
pseudogamy, amphimixis, parthenogenesis,       heterogamy I do it all
but for a real gender bender I think I might
be a protandrous hermaphrodite

Heh, it's the nematode rap!

My collagenous cuticle is annulated
my bilateral symmetry is under rated
if you look round my mouth you will see
elements of radial symmetry

Heh, it's the nematode rap!

My deirids are opposite the oesophageal bulb
with two circlets of papillae on each stomal lobe
and so that you won't think I'm silly
I have six pairs of genital papillae

Now you may think that sounds like crap

but Heh, it's the nematode rap!

David Wharton, University of Otago (presented at an end-of-year Zoology Department review)