Many users find what can be seen in that video on Facebook either scary or fascinating. And many asked us if the video was real.
In the video you can see a praying mantis from which, once submerged under water, a very long worm emerges.

You can watch this video here:
“Hello, I’m a Nematomorpha!”
I'm sure you can't remember this name. So just call me “string worm”. It's easy for you to remember, because I'm as thin as a string, at most three millimeters. But I can grow up to two meters long!
I'm actually an aquatic animal. But water is dangerous! My eggs can be eaten far too easily by fish or other critters! That's why I came up with something really clever: I have a drill that I can use to pierce the soft bodies of insects without killing them. Then I simply lay my eggs in the insect that has dared to get too close to the water!
I think that's great: my eggs are then protected in the insect, and when they hatch, my little children can develop in the insect in peace and grow up without a care in the world. No evil predators anywhere. I'm so smart!
I'm sure I'm wondering how my little ones get back into the water when they grow up, right?
Ha, don't worry, I've thought of everything! When my sprout grows up, it triggers a kind of suicide mechanism in the host insect. The insect will then go into the water whether it wants to or not. As soon as the adult stringworm senses that the goal has been reached, it will wriggle out of the dying insect. Just like in the video!
The poor praying mantis!
The video is a little mean.
The poor worm was tricked, the praying mantis wasn't actually in open water yet! But the praying mantis would have died anyway , so you can't really blame the creator of the video. At best it shortened the animal's suffering, as it is certainly not pleasant to be controlled by a worm inside.
Conclusion
The video is real. Stringworms use insects as host animals. Inside, the eggs of the stringworm hatch, grow, and then force the host animal into the water, where the insect dies and the adult stringworm leaves the insect's body.
This method of parasitism is widespread . Submerging insects under water is also not an unusual act, as colleague Anke says; In this way, veterinarians and animal keepers test whether the population in a certain area is infested with these and similar parasites.
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

