This Worm Brainwashes a Cricket, Then Bursts Out of It

On a warm night, a cricket does the one thing it spent its whole life avoiding. It walks straight into open water. It is not confused, and it is not lost. Something inside it is pulling the strings, and by the time it reaches the edge, the choice was never really its own. This is the story of the horsehair worm, a parasite that grows for weeks inside a cricket's body, feeds on it from the inside, and then hijacks its nervous system to march it to the water so the worm can burst out and breed. We follow one cricket from the drink of water that started it, through the slow takeover, to the moment the worm erupts into the stream, and then to the surprising place a cricket's quiet end fits into the whole food web. Enjoyed this one? More strange animal stories every week:    / @bonefolks