Here’s something that supports my long-held thesis that scientists make the best science fiction writers not because they know so much about science but because they’re so damn weird:
“…if all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes, and oceans represented by a film of nematodes. The location of towns would be decipherable, since for every massing of human beings there would be a corresponding massing of certain nematodes. Trees would still stand in ghostly rows representing our streets and highways. The location of the various plants and animals would still be decipherable, and, had we sufficient knowledge, in many cases even their species could be determined by an examination of their erstwhile nematode parasites.”
From Nematodes and Their Relationships, 1915 by Nathan Augustus Cobb, the “father of nematology in the U.S.“
