Nature can be weird and wonderful.

I’m not sure which of these categories what you’re about to see falls under, but we’re here anyway.

This story landed on my desk because Mike Inouye decided to share it on Twitter.

Mike, you are now my enemy.

His tweet shows a ‘zombie snail’ – one of what I would consider nature’s biological horrors.

Take a look:

This zombie snail. A parasitic worm Leucochloridium has taken over its motor functions and eye stalks, making them into caterpillar mimics so birds will eat them. The worm can then reproduce in the bird’s GI tract, eventually transmitting via its faeces https://t.co/mP8IrGh21L pic.twitter.com/C2xc83oU54

— Mike Inouye (@minouye271) August 12, 2019

Nope.

Now that I have your attention, let’s go into the specifics of what you just saw, because we’ve already started on this journey and might as well go all the way.

Over to AV CLUB:

…the snail is being controlled by a parasitic worm called Leucochloridium. This wriggly little nightmare “invades a snail’s eyestalks, where it pulsates to imitate a caterpillar” and “mind-controls its host out into the open for hungry birds to pluck out its eyes.”

The vore-enthusiast worm then “breeds in the bird’s guts, releasing its eggs in the bird’s feces, which are happily eaten up by another snail to complete the whole bizarre life cycle.”

And it doesn’t end there…

It turns out it “castrates its host,” “sends out branches that tunnel through the snail’s body,” and makes the poor snail’s eyestalks appear to dance once it’s filled them with “a brood sac full of larvae.”

In order to get eaten by a bird, the parasite also forces its snail host out into daylight and onto higher branches and leaves. For further horror, consider, too, that birds “don’t typically go after snails” so, after eating the parasite-filled eyestalks, they’ll leave the snail behind to “not only survive, but…regenerate” their chewed-off bits and “regain the ability to reproduce.”

If you want to read the whole article, be my guest. You can find it here.

Or, if reading isn’t your thing, watch this dramatic feature on what goes down:

I made it to around the 30-second mark before bailing on that one.

I do, however, realise that some of you enjoy this stuff, so here’s a bonus video of a hairworm eating a cricket alive and controlling it.

Made it through the first 10 seconds of that one…

[source:avclub]