Prepare for your skin to crawl
The animal kingdom is a weird, wonderful, surprising and often inspiring place - but we're guessing that even David Attenborough himself would find the following a bit puke-inducing.
The so-called 'zombie snail' has gone viral on Twitter for all the wrong reasons - mainly, how utterly grotesque it is.
That said, it's also quite fascinating, as biologist Mike Inuoye, who shared the original post, explained.
Basically, a parasitic worm has taken control of the snail's motor functions - and not only that, but it has made the snail's eye stalks look like caterpillars so that it'll attract birds. Once the bird has eaten the snail, the worm can then reproduce in its digestive system, and then be pooped out to start the process all over again.
In short, this evil worm could possibly take over the world some day if we're not careful. Those are some seriously impressive evolutionary skills in operation.
But the wriggling. Make the wriggling stop. Please.
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
However, the whole thing is worth reading through for this reaction post alone:
— Sabah Ul-Hasan, PhD (@sabahzero) August 12, 2019