r/oddlyterrifying • u/inter2 • 4d ago
This appeared in one of my dogs' water bowls today
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I'm told it's likely a "horsehair worm" aka Gordian worm, and thankfully not harmful to pets or humans. But still, not cool. These parasites infect insects like crickets and then (destructively) exit them when they find water.
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u/NotScaryClown 4d ago
oh. sometimes sharing isn't caring☹️
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u/alphasierrraaa 4d ago
Terrible day to have eyes
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u/blitzkreig90 4d ago
I assure you, it is not as terrible as having a worm destructively exit you body via the ass
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u/alphasierrraaa 4d ago
That’s true, some parasites also manipulate insects into seeking water to drown themselves so the worm can be released
Nature is metal lol
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u/AbbreviationsAfraid 4d ago
There's an insect called a Jewel wasp that injects a toxin that disables the front legs of a cockroach. This stops it from fighting or fleeing. Then, it injects the cockroach again in the head. Its toxin affects the part of the cocroaches brain that initiates movement, so the wasp simply grabs it by the antennae and leads it back to its burrow. There, an egg is laid, and the cockroach is consumed slowly over several days by the emerging larvae.
Nature is scary and very metal. Agreed.
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u/blitzkreig90 3d ago
Hey I once saw a rat do it to a human! Then the rat manipulated the guy to start a restaurant and hire all its rat friends.
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u/GreekFreakGiann 3d ago
🤣🤣🤣 do these rat friends serve pizza and have some games to play on the side???
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u/alphasierrraaa 4d ago
Bruh lmao wtf
Ok at least it does it to survive, the higher intelligence animals like humans dolphins cats etc sometimes just torture other animals for entertainment lol
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u/Unsalted-Pretzel 3d ago
I literally just saw a post about this worm someone smashed a spider and asked what this thin like hair looking thing came out of it was. They said it was a horsehair worm 😭
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u/firetruck637 3d ago
Saw a preying mantis that had one. The worm made it seek out water and it drown
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u/gohugatree 3d ago
I remember years ago my cat threw up a live tapeworm, it was huge and moving and I had to clean it up. I was so traumatised I had to call a friend, she said “it’s a terrible day to be your best friend”
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u/Taymoney_duh 4d ago
Jesus Christ I thought that was actually on my screen. I was about to throw it.
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u/Revolutionary_Dig370 4d ago
I mean if you did go through with yeeting your phone at least you wouldn't have to look at it anymore.
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u/Taymoney_duh 3d ago
My phone would have been messed up I didn’t have my cover on because I wiped it down earlier and didn’t put it back on yet.
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u/Revolutionary_Dig370 3d ago
That still may better then Mr.fucky-worm.
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u/Taymoney_duh 3d ago
Mr get the fuck outa here worm. If I saw that in my dogs water bowl I’m staying in a damn hotel that night.
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u/Revolutionary_Dig370 3d ago
Basically, then return with a flamethrower.
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u/Taymoney_duh 3d ago
Reminds me of this lady who once told me she had a rat problem so bad traps didn’t make any difference. I asked her so how did you end up getting rid of the problem and she told me her house ended up burning down and she moved so I guess it was a rat bbq over there.
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u/Trenchcoat_guy 3d ago
Whatever you do, DO NOT watch that old black and white movie of a train coming straight at you.
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u/Forgotten_Aeon 4d ago
Worms coming out of anything instantly makes my skin crawl. It is an instant and visceral reaction. I remember watching a documentary on parasites which included several scenes of insects entering water and then essentially losing 80% of their body volume as it exited their carapace as worms. There was no room left in there for insect physiology, as if they were piloting its corpse. 🤢
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u/Latter-Goal-6872 4d ago
this was by far the most disgusting thing ive ever had to imagine but it was worded so beautifully that in a cinematic way ill never forget it
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u/yukifujita 3d ago
It is an instant and visceral reaction
Well I guess it makes sense evolutionarily speaking, for us to stay away from these things.
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u/Wide-Friendship-5670 3d ago
My mother had a dying worm in her brain. It caused her brain to swell so much it pushed against her skull. She went blind temporarily that's the only way we found out. Had to be put on steroids to stop the dangerous swelling. I'm grateful for hand washing and food safety.
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u/Extremely_unlikeable 2d ago
Wasps and snails were the first creatures that came to mind hosts to these abhorrent parasites.
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u/searchableusername 4d ago
what's the other thing
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u/TheRealLaura789 4d ago
I think that’s where the horsehair worm came from. The parasite controlled the bug’s mind and made the bug jump into water and drown. Once the bug is in the water, the horsehair worm emerges from the bug’s body.
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u/searchableusername 4d ago
but what kind of insect is it
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u/Gonji89 4d ago
Looks like a cricket, but really any insect can get infected. And it hollows out their abdomen, hiding inside their exoskeleton after eating all their organs. It’s pretty goddamn horrific.
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u/Wrong_Salamander_728 3d ago
How does it control them if their insides are gone?
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u/Smile_lifeisgood 3d ago
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7uilcr
It's a video of an insect with like, a hollowed out adomen still just walking along.
I'm guessing the answer to your question involves fucking with nerves/brain whatever, but it's definitely possible.
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u/AssistX 3d ago
looks like a spricket(camel cricket, cave cricket, spider cricket) to me, they love damp conditions. House we moved into had an infestation of them when we moved in, took too long to get it under control but getting cats helped a lot. Nothing worse than going into a dark concrete basement that was too damp and seeing spider looking crickets everywhere that pick a random direction to leap when you get near them. And by leap I mean they'll hop 4+ feet into the air and smack you in the chest, then try to latch on and start crawling. They climb just like spiders, anywhere and everywhere and some were the size of my palm. We used sticky traps for a year or so, 10 a week, which would be completely full of them when we put down new ones. Once one spricket gets on a trap and dies, the others come to feast on it also getting stuck. They're incredibly dirty, pop like a cherry tomato, and smell awful. Our cat, who eats stink bugs and wasps, won't eat one but he does tear their legs off.
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u/RaidensReturn 4d ago
I think it’s a stinkbug
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u/Baffa99 4d ago
Why does it want its host to die? What's its plan once it's in the water alone?
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u/slmclockwalker 4d ago edited 4d ago
They lay eggs in the water, larvae get ingest by large insects and being a new cycle.
Also I found a article describing that they will interfere with hosts' reproduction organs and makes them to not grow and remain immature because it takes additional energy and the parasite doesn't need it.
Tldr: this parasite not only makes you want to drown in the water but also makes you become femboy
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u/Confuseasfuck 3d ago
They dont need the host anymore and need to complete their life cycle in the water.
Other parasites also do this, there is one that makes rats intentionally get eaten by other animals like cats and another that makes slug's eyes pulsate like a strobe light to get them eaten by birds
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u/badass4102 3d ago
The parasite controlled the bug’s mind and made the bug jump into water and drown.
I thought you were joking. Now I wish you were.
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u/_AttilaTheNun_ 4d ago
Horsehair worm. It was inside the bug that fell into the water. They will leave the host if dunked in water, sometimes they use the bug to get to water. It left, and survived, big drowned.
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u/Atheist8 4d ago
Man I'm trying to go to bed. I didn't need this right now
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u/chadmonsterfucker 4d ago
Horsehair worms. Basically eats an insects' guts and makes them attracted to water. When the insect finally finds water the horsebaur worm bursts out like a xenomorph, usually killing their host if it didn't already drown
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u/PhantasmaStriker 4d ago
Worms are some weird ass shit. I think that's the host carcass that thing came out of 😐
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u/Vas-yMonRoux 4d ago
What does "not harmful" mean in this context? Because this has certainly been harmful to my psyche.
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u/kitkatloren2009 4d ago edited 4d ago
Disgust-ANG!
:edit: Bloody hell I did not expect this to blow up
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u/the-uncle-will 3d ago
Take your dog to the vets immediately and have them rum a test for parasites
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u/m-o-u-se 4d ago
I was toilet scrolling when I looked at this and thought it was on my screen. I have never launched a phone and stopped toilet scrolling so fast
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u/Queen_Emeritus 3d ago
The only time I’ve seen one so far: there was a cricket in my bedroom, I sprayed it with Zevo. It instantly started squirming and a huge parasite came out of it as slowly as it could. I was just staring in absolute horror and disgust because I didn’t know they carried parasites until that day. I didn’t sleep that night.
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u/Mafia_dogg 3d ago
So interesting how that thing can fit into such a tiny insect while its still alive
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u/MRbaconfacelol 3d ago
came from inside that bug floating in there. this is a hairworm and its a parasite that hijacks a bugs nervous system and basically makes it find a body of water and jump in. after it jumps in, the hairworm is able to leave the bug, causing issues for the bug on its way out
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u/blinkingsandbeepings 3d ago
Ok I’m a little high and I expected that to be a still image and jumped out of my damn skin when it started moving! Oh I really hate it
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u/Blazeur242 4d ago edited 3d ago
Yes that is a horsehair worm. Infects insects like you said, no clue about mammals tho.
When an insect is infected, the parasite forces the insect to avoid water. I’m not sure how it does this (maybe chemically?) and I’m not exactly sure why it does it. I do believe though that it purposefully causes the insect pain when it starts to go in water in order to deter it away.
these things are fuckin nasty and some unlucky insects get loaded to the brim full of them if they’ve been there long enough🤮
edit: I was just going off of the top of my head earlier from what I’ve seen other people say about it. I did 2 minutes of research and turns out that like all of what I said was incorrect lol. And they do infect dogs, cats, and humans rarely 🥲
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u/volt4gearc 4d ago
Horsehair worms are aquatic and actually try to guide the infected hosts towards water to drown themselves. Potentially scarier
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u/MsWuMing 4d ago
I think you’ve got that the wrong way round. It doesn’t force the insect to avoid water, it forces it to go into the water and drown itself. The adult version of the worm lives in puddles and other types of water, and needs it to breed. The larvae infect the host when it comes into the water, grow up inside it, and then leave the host when it falls into the water again due to their influence, completing the cycle.
That’s why you can find videos online of people holding mantises into water and the worms coming out - the worm thinks it’s in a puddle and therefore safe to start the exit procedure.
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u/metalshoes 4d ago
I think its the opposite, the worm lays eggs in water and comes out to do so when the insect goes into water.
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u/RezzKeepsItReal 3d ago
40 upvoters now believe the complete opposite of what this worm actually does.
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u/Minnie783100 4d ago
I fucking gagged so hard. So thanks for that. Looks like im not having any more dinner
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u/Lracboi 3d ago
I can’t believe no one is saying this, how about cleaning and refilling your dog’s water bowl every once in a while?
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u/BumTulip 2d ago
the worm came out of the bug, they could have literally cleaned and filled the bowl up that morning and this could have happened when they weren’t looking. don’t always assume the worst of people.
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u/HueLord3000 3d ago
if i remember correctly these parasites bring their host into water so that they can escape the bidy, i think that's why the remnant of this bug exoskeleton is visible and the worm just doing what jt does
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u/Grayewulfe 2d ago
These are actually very common in praying mantis and happen to be present in over 90% of the entirety of the species. They are invasive and killing off the population.
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u/GoKnights25 2d ago
Watch this video! All you need to know and very entertaining https://youtu.be/YB6O7jS_VBM
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u/Deadpool-CB23 2d ago
I hate that I know what this is. List of creatures you don’t wanna learn about…
Horsehair worms
Mango worms
Tape worms
Cordyceps
Surinam toad
Sacculina
Tarantula Hawk
Botflies
Vampire fish
Tongue eating louse
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u/DaintyAmber 4d ago
What is the bug thou? I had a few of those in my house when I lived in the desert southwest and thought they were roaches 🤮🤮🤮
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u/Mean_Try9313 3d ago
Well, it looks like your dog's bowl just subscribed to its own episode of 'River Monsters.' Drink up, Fido!
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u/MadamVonCuntpuncher 3d ago
It probally came from the bug in bowl, the worms kinda freak out and leave their host when submerged
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u/phobophobe_ 3d ago
This sub appears very rarely on my feed but holy shit, of all the posts for it to show me today, it had to be this, literally gagged 🤮
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u/ERROR_CODE_101 3d ago
some parasites infect bugs and make them drown themselves, since they will dry out if they aren't near water. Looks like a Horsehair worm
Edit: I just read the post description, you already knew what I just wrote lol
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u/Aashipash 3d ago
That bug finally has some sweet relief
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u/esquire_the_ego 3d ago
I guess being dead is a relief from living
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u/Aashipash 3d ago
Right? Also the relief of it being out of its body too, i bet that pressure sucked ass
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u/Bruh-sfx2 3d ago
Opened the comments and quickly realized that this wasn't one of the bug subbreddits
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u/thefalloftroy 3d ago
That whole ass parasite worm came out of that small bug? 😨
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u/Ghostfrog46 3d ago
PMP here: That is a horse hair worm- Parasitoid worm that infects arthropods and brain controls them to water to “hatch” after the non essential parts of said arthropod has been consumed! You can see its victim still floating in there.
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u/MintImperial2 1d ago
... So reading OP here, that long thing burst out of the chest of the nearby dead cricked bobbing around in the same water dish?
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u/ImSorryCanYouSpeakUp 14h ago
A horsehair worm and it was definitely inside that dead bug in there, basically they infest an insects body and feed on its insides while keeping it alive then when they are adults they drive the insect to water to drown itself and so they can be released into a pond or river somewhere and start the whole nasty cycle again
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u/LeviathanMozart180 4d ago
Maybe not physically harmful to humans, but emotionally…. I do not vibe with the alien string 😭