Some animals have a venomous bite. Some have mighty tusks or horns. Others have poisonous stingers. The Horsehair Worm, however, has a much darker trick up it’s nasty little sleeve: it can turn animals into zombies, and get them to do it’s bidding.

The male Horsehair Worm begins life as a tiny waterborne larva. Crabs and insects such a grasshoppers drink the water, in turn drinking the larva. Incubated in the body heat of its victim, the Horsehair Worm grows, ending up resembling, well, a horse hair. As it grows, it nourishes itself by eating the living tissue of the animal it’s residing in.

When the Horsehair Worm reaches maturity, it feels the urge to procreate, but has a problem that female Horsehair Worms live in water. Cue zombies. The male Horsehair Worm attaches itself to the brain of its host, and effectively reprograms the host to do it’s bidding.

It forces the insect to find the nearest body of water and throw itself in. The host then drowns in the water and the Horsehair worm burrows out, mating with a female, which then spawns many more larva. Grim.

3) Cymotha Exigua

Ah yes, the Cymothoa Exigua. It just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it. Or, at least it would if you still had a tongue.

Cymothoa Exigua is a tiny crustacean that, like most people in Florida, is partial to a fish called Red Snapper. Unlike our Floridian friends though, this nasty little critter doesn’t use a line and a net to catch its prey.

It swims through the gills of its victim, up through the head, and attaches itself to the host’s tongue. It then effectively anaesthetises the tongue, so the fish doesn’t know it’s there, before digging in its claws and drinking the blood in the tongue.

The Cymothoa Exigua then grows as it feeds, which in turn cuts of further blood-flow to its host’s tongue, which ultimately causes the tongue to wither, die, and fall off. When it’s gone, the Cymothoa Exigua sits happily in the tongues place, and the fish is apparently none-the-wiser. In fact, it will even fuse itself to the muscles that once controlled the now long-gone tongue, ensuring it has a home in the Red Snapper’s mouth for the rest of its life.

7 Adorable Animals That Could Kill You In An Instant

And why does this creature go through the gruesome, mutilating process? Scientists remain baffled. We guess some crustaceans just want to see the world burn.

2) Leocochloridium Paradoxum

“I believe I can fly” warbled Robert Sylvester Kelly in a song about a cartoon rabbit who plays basketball. Or something. But R Kelly isn’t the only one to hold such lofty aviation-based ambitions. There’s also Icarus, The Montgolfier Brothers, and those cheeky Wright boys. Add to that list, Leocochloridium Paradoxum.

Now, any of the animals in this awful, awful zoo can be presumed to be right stinkers. However, one that starts its life in a pile of shit, just like Leocochloridium Paradoxum (or LP as it will be referred to from now on) can fairly be thought of as a real wrongun.

Indeed, the baby LPs start their life in a pile of bird poo, but that’s just the start of it. LP sit, waiting for a snail to come along and, like snails do, suck up both the poo and the bacteria. Once inside the snail, LP grows, and works its nasty little way up to the snails head.

Once there, it forces its way to the snail’s eye-stalks stretching and deforming them so the look more like caterpillars than snail eyes. LP then attacks the snail’s brain, forcing it to move into the open, where birds can see it.

5 Videos Of Animals Emerging From Toilets Guaranteed To Give You Bathroom Anxiety

The hungry birds, thinking they’ve spotted some fat, juicy caterpillars, then swoop down and eat the disguised eye-stalks. And with this vile series of events, our shit-born creature achieves flight.

Once inside the host bird, LP continues to grow, and reproduce. The parasite then spawns offspring, which the bird then defecates out, and the entire sorry process begins once again.

You may also like:

This Fisherman Catches Creatures From The Bottom Of The Ocean – And They’re F**king Terrifying

Watch: One Of The World’s Most Venomous Snakes Eating A Carpet Python In Australia