Up Next
Back to Show
Deep Look
These Hairworms Eat a Cricket Alive and Control Its Mind
Season 6
Episode 3
A baby hairworm hitches a ride inside a cricket, feasting on its fat until the coiled-up parasite is ready to burst out. Then it hijacks the cricket's mind and compels it to head to water for a gruesome little swim.
Support Provided By
4:33
The spotted wing drosophila may look like a common fruit fly, but it’s so much worse.
5:13
Those precious silk garments in your closet were made by the caterpillars of a fuzzy moth.
3:58
Barnacles might look like jagged little rocks, but they have a surprisingly wild sex life.
4:36
Honeypot ants stuff members of their own colony until they look like tiny water balloons.
4:25
What animal sprays acid that reeks of vinegar from its rear end? A vinegaroon, of course.
4:31
The cage fungus looks and smells like decaying meat — on purpose.
5:12
Subterranean termites fly off in swarms, and then drop their wings to start new colonies.
4:59
A twig is actually just one of many disguises for the Australian walking stick insect.
4:46
They might look like harmless grasshoppers, but locusts have an appetite for destruction.
4:58
A kissing bug gorges on your blood, plus it may carry a potentially deadly parasite.
4:38
Skeleton shrimp anatomy can be confusing, with their funky assortment of body parts.
4:42
Tadpole shrimp are a special type of time-traveling crustacean called triops.