6 Horrifying Bugs That Forgot To Follow The Rules Of Nature

Twisted-wing parasites start out life as tiny larvae. Very tiny. "Can crawl right inside a bee, silverfish, or cockroach" tiny. Once inside a host, their mere presence causes their host's genitals to straight-up vanish, in the most dickish magic trick since Batman drowned Wolverine. Please note that we haven't even gotten to the worst part about twisted-wing parasites yet, despite spending the previous two sentences describing how they make genitals disappear.

Once they grow up big and strong (relatively speaking), the male twisted-wing parasites leave their host and fly off to fulfill the singular mission of every single pubescent male in the animal kingdom: have as much sex as possible before they die of a spontaneous dick explosion. The problem is, female twisted-wing parasites never grow wings. For that matter, they never develop much past the larval stage, or even leave their host. So how do they bone? In the most terrifying manner possible. The females jam their backsides outside of their hosts' bodies, turning them into walking vagina bouquets, like Cronenbergian pornography.

University of Vermont

And in case you're still planning on sleeping tonight, in some species, the females have entirely given up on concepts such as "normalcy" and "the having of genitals." Among these varieties, the males are forced to impregnate the females using the old stab 'n' squirt method, better-known to science types as "traumatic insemination" and to everyone else as "the facehugger method." Then, during pregnancy, the ungrateful little shits cannibalize their mother from the inside out before emerging to start the cycle all over again.

While surveying wasp nests in a Chinese nature reserve, researchers found that a subset of the nests contained an entry compartment, which in turn contained scads of ant corpses. Spider hawks don't even eat ants. So why would they murder a bunch of them and task their earthly remains with babysitting? Well, researchers posit that the smell of the ants -- as we've already seen, ants can contain some potent-ass chemicals -- can effectively ward off predators and parasites.

Think about it. If you were to round up all the stray cats in the neighborhood and nail them to your front door, we're betting there's a pretty good chance no one would ever break into your house, thus ensuring the safety of your children. That's common sense.

You can't really see what they're doing, but when the head comes off, you get the idea.

Scientists believe this objectively psychotic behavior is in fact a necessary component of the fly's reproductive cycle. The immediate infusion of proteins from the ant brains is vital for fueling the development of the female's newly fertilized eggs. And believe it or not, this isn't even the most disturbing fly reproductive cycle involving ant decapitation. Dohrniphora's itsy-bitsy cousin, the phorid fly, also beheads ants ... from the inside.

Adult females dive-bomb living ants and use their needle-like ovipositors to ram their eggs deep inside the ants' bodies. As the maggot develops, it gradually works its way up through its host into the head, where it hijacks the ant's brain, using mind-controlling chemicals to keep it from acting suspicious. After it's had sufficient time to grow, the maggot then directs the ant to find somewhere moist and sheltered, where the ant at long last receives the sweet release of death as the larva dissolves the tissue linking its head to its body. The separated head becomes a crib for the developing hellspawn, until finally, a new adult fly emerges from the ant's mouth parts to perpetuate its hideous parody of the miracle of life.

Sanford Porter/United States Department of Agriculture

There is good news, however: Their preferred target for carrying out this abomination is the fire ant, which you may recognize as an invasive pest that has spread across massive swaths of the southern United States. Texas ranchers are hopeful that they can battle the scourge by using phorid flies, because countering an invasive species by introducing yet another invasive species is something that has never gone wrong ever.

It's about what hunts them.

BBC

One day, God drank too much whiskey and decided to find out what a sentient carnivorous prolapsed rectum would look like. The result was the Giant Red Leech, found exclusively in the region of Borneo's Mount Kinabalu.

We've watched this a dozen times and still can't decide if it would be worse to be eaten face-first or ass-first.

Discovered a mere two years ago, the Giant Red Leech slips across the forest floor with shocking speed, sniffing out the trails of mucus left behind by its massive earthworm prey. When it finds one of said worms, it slithers its obscene mouth parts along the length of the worm's body in a deeply uncomfortable display, at which point it proceeds to slurp up its prey like a fat, slimy spaghetti noodle. Look at this shit. Look at it.

BBC

Considering its relatively recent discovery, scientists are only starting to learn the horrifying ins and outs of this simultaneously wondrous and dismaying creature. Until they're able to quantify its full appetite for flesh and/or banish it to the far moons of Jupiter, it's probably best to stay the hell away from Mount Kinabalu.

Of course, the whole reason bees make honey is that they don't eat all their food right away -- their survival depends on their ability to store it for both themselves and their developing children. That's why honey basically has a shelf life of forever. Therefore, until the day insects invent tiny refrigerators, vulture bees have a big, stinky problem: meat has a tendency to rot. So how do these flying affronts to natural order stave off starvation?

Simple. They do what all bees do: They make honey. Meat honey.

Bigal River Conservation Project

Vulture bees harvest and consume corpses using a meat-dissolving solution secreted from their jaws. Then, their guts sufficiently full of flesh smoothies, they fly back to the colony and puke up the revolting concoction of half-dissolved carrion for their pals. Said pals slurp up this gruesome juice and transform it into a nutrient-rich secretion that can be stored indefinitely. You know, like honey.

Bigal River Conservation Project

Sean is a parasite on society. You can subject yourself to more of his shenanigans on Twitter @bbbbeannnn.

For more creations of Mother Nature that are straight from the bowels of hell, check out The 7 Most Terrifying Mouths In Nature and 13 Real Animals Lifted Directly Out Of Your Nightmares.

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