Gordian worms live inside crickets. Once fully grown, they inject chemicals into the cricket’s brain, brainwashing it and forcing it to kill itself by jumping into water. Once in water, the worm wriggles out of the writhing body and swims off in search of a mate.
[Thanks: JD]
Jason Fried wrote this on Jul 14 2008 There are 39 comments.
Marcel Molina 14 Jul 08
That worm is HUGE . That’s amazing but also the stuff of nightmares.
Erik 14 Jul 08
Holy hell that is creepy.
Anonymous Coward 14 Jul 08
Thanks a lot. The next time I feel like swimming, I’ll wonder if I am host to brainwashing worms.
Mike Larkin 14 Jul 08
Wow…that really creeps me out! Growing up, we’d find dead crickets in the pool ALL THE TIME .
Alex 14 Jul 08
That worm is unbelievably long
Mike 14 Jul 08
I could have gone all day without seeing that.
Alexey 14 Jul 08
OMG ! Good reason to wear tight swimming trunks :)
Sebhelyesfarku 14 Jul 08
So crickets are like Maczealots?
Edward 14 Jul 08
Sick! Is it just me or does it look like the mass of the worm is greater than the mass of the cricket?
Sam Brown 14 Jul 08
Nature 1 – My Swimming Pool; Empty
Drew 14 Jul 08
Don’t tell M. Night Shyamalan or he’ll run off and make a terrible movie about it… except in his rendition the crickets WILL BE PEOPLE !
Jake 14 Jul 08
@ Drew
Actually his twist would be the WORMS ARE PEOPLE !!!
Vincent Theeten 14 Jul 08
Similar story with a type of parasite that lives in mice. This particular parasite can only reproduce inside the stomach of cats. So it manipulates the brains of mice to no longer be scared of cats, but attracted instead. Once the host (mice) are eaten, the parasite can reproduce. Oh the circle of life…
Oli 14 Jul 08
If you think that’s bad for crickets, look at this under the “Mental Manipulation” section, bad for rats and not too good for humans either!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3287733.stm
Frank 14 Jul 08
I echo everyone else’s sentiments: where the heck was that worm hiding inside the cricket?
Mike Larkin 14 Jul 08
Yet another parasite…
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/8341/
Sage 14 Jul 08
Carl Zimmer’s Parasite Rex is full of parasites like these. Great, great book (and no, no affiliation at all – I’m just a bit of a biology geek).
Marcos Kuhns 14 Jul 08
There are parasitic fungi too that I learned about via the BBC ’s Planet Earth series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3t4v8PmY_Q
Also of interest, at the end of the clip they talk about one advantage of this type of parasite ecological balance.
@Oli: a very interesting article!
Gavin Joyce 14 Jul 08
Dan Dennett gave a fascinating talk on dangerous memes:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes.html
Somewhat related to this.
Jan Tallent 14 Jul 08
oh, this is awful, ugh! Bad enough the things we CAN see in the water! eek!
Zack 14 Jul 08
@Anonymous Coward: Hahaha.
Yeah, this shit is terrible.
DjD 14 Jul 08
Nature is freakin scary is what the title should read after seeing that!
cubiclegrrl 14 Jul 08
The “Intelligent Designer” certainly has a nasty sense of humor…
Randy Kopplin 14 Jul 08
So how do you know the worm brainwashes the cricket? Maybe this is the whole master plan anyway.
alan 14 Jul 08
reminds me a bit of that one worm we get around this part of the woods – africa – kids get infested with the larvae when they play in polluted water – the larvae gets in through the foot/ankle then grows/makes it way all the way up to the leg till the groin area at which stage it becomes more detectable. it becomes up to a meter long – what’s that, 3 feet?
think that’s rough?
the extraction method is locating the worm and then ‘winding it up’ with a matchstick – basically extracting it as slow as possible to make sure it doesn’t break off. they can only remove a little bit at a time so this process takes weeks to complete..
imagine what that feels like.
(it’s the guinea worm if you want to google it. my story above is as i’ve heard it – not 100% medical fact but good enough to pass along.)
see what time says about it.
GeorgeM 14 Jul 08
It is we who are the parasites! Gobbling up our host, but with no cycle of recovery. Actually, maybe Agent Smith was more accurate—we’re a cancer! Yes, Nature is amazing. Let’s destroy it. hooaahahaah….
yann 14 Jul 08
Should have been the inspiration for Night Shyamalan’s last movie…
Lou 14 Jul 08
I watched an episode of “The Most Extreme” where the Ribeoria parasite was the #1 transformer.
1. Starts as an egg in a predator. 2. Predator poops out the parasite. 3. Snail eats the poop/parasite, then poops it out. 4. Tadpole eats the parasite. 5. Tadpole becomes frog. 6. Parasite alters the frog DNA to make the frog grow a crippling number of extra limbs. 7. Predator eats frog/parasite. 8. Repeat.
Phil McThomas 15 Jul 08
Lordy! I just had a 2girls1cup moment!
HondaGrrl 15 Jul 08
yeah. i’ve got the shivvers now, and I don’t think it is because of the air conditioning. so, thanks for sharing…. Did you see the episode of “House” where he pulls a 20-foot long tape worm out of some girl’s stomach? (http://tinyurl.com/65×52x) more shivvers….
Danny Hope 15 Jul 08
Dan Dennett talks about Lancet Fluke (Dicrocoelium lanceolatum) in this this video (near the beginning):
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/dan_dennett.html
They have evolved a similar behaviour.
David 15 Jul 08
To add a little bit of reality here, the worm does not “brainwash the cricket”. The worm can however exit its dead host. Someone had been watching too much xfiles and sci fi channel.
Ali 15 Jul 08
I love nature, things like this are amazing. I wonder how the worm brainwashes the cricket.
alan 15 Jul 08
david: ‘brainwash it’ = ‘influence it’, doesn’t it? the worm influences the cricket to try out a certain course of action, which it does to it’s own detriment, and the worm’s benefit.
brainwash 101.
ali: i saw a nature segment recently on plants that want to commit suicide (long story). they release a certain chemical, this attracts insects, the insects feed on the plant and kills it. i’m guessing the ‘brainwashing’ bit follows a similar logic – chemical influences to try out new things… ;)
Shaggy 15 Jul 08
worms are evil!
Christian decker 16 Jul 08
I was about to go to sleep, but now I’m rethinking about that…
JD 16 Jul 08
How did you find such an interesting article? You should share your sources with us - your adoring fans - so we can find awesome info like this, too.
mr.negative 16 Jul 08
Reminds me of my ex.
Ben Unsworth 18 Jul 08
That worm is not unlike the tv ad that tricked me into buying a case of Budweiser earlier today.
This discussion is closed.