Mysterious creature crawls out of dead praying mantis

Internet - People with sensitive stomachs better look away now.

The praying mantis is cut open, and something nasty comes out of it.
The praying mantis is cut open, and something nasty comes out of it.  © Screenshot/Reddit/JediWithAnM4

Reddit user JediWithAnM4 recently shared a weird video that took almost everyone's breath away.

This clip shows a praying mantis, which appears to be dead, lying on the ground. A knife cuts open the green insect's back after nudging it several times.

As soon as the cut is made, long black tentacles start to crawl out of its body. With every poke, the tentacles get longer and longer – almost as if an alien-like creature is trying to make its way out of the insect's carcass.

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Even though the Reddit post has over 33,300 upvotes, most people didn't enjoy watching the clip at all. "I hated every single second of that," one user wrote. Another agreed: "Genuinely unsettling."

But what in the world was the alien-like creature?

According to the Daily Star, it was a horsehair worm. Apparently, the praying mantis had eaten insects infected with the parasite. The worm starts out as a larva but begins to grow as soon as it's eaten its host's body.

The worm then secretes a protein that takes over its host's nervous system, eventually killing it.

Cover photo: Screenshot/Reddit/JediWithAnM4

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