These Hairworms Eat a Cricket Alive and Control Its Mind, Deep Look

Support Deep Look on Patreon A baby hairworm hitches a ride inside a cricket, feasting on its fat until the coiledup 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. SUBSCRIBE to Deep Look DEEP LOOK is an ultraHD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small. If youre out on a hike and look down at a puddle, you might spot a long, brown spaghettishaped creature whipping around madly in a figure 8. Its a hairworm also known as a horsehair worm or Gordian worm and researchers have described 350 species around the world. Good news: It isnt interested in infecting or attacking humans. But if you had happened on the puddle a few hours earlier, you might have witnessed a gruesome spectacle the hairworm wriggli