Asklemmy

I was third wheeling on a 3 day trip with my friend and his girlfriend. We had hiked a good 15 miles into the backcountry at this point and made our campsites not far from a small stream. We all had dinner together, and afterwards I went back to my smaller campsite a little ways away to give them some privacy. It was already dark when I got to my camp, and as I was taking off my boots I looked down and saw a grasshopper on the ground. It was laying on its side, with only its antennae moving.

Except, it's antenna were...weirdly long? I never remembered them being quite that long and thin. And they were slowly wiggling around quite a lot, in ways I didn't think antennae could move. So I leaned in to take a closer look.

They were not antennae. Rather, it was a parasite that just ate it's way out of the grasshoppers head and was writhing itself out of its now hollowed-out host toward freedom. Over the next few minutes, I sat transfixed in front of this unholy scene illumated only by my headlamp and watched as this worm slowly made its way out of the insects body. Occasionally the grasshopper's body or legs would twitch, I'm guessing after the parasite rubbed up against a nerve on its way out. The parasite was easily twice the length of the grasshopper itself, or at least that's how much of it I saw emerge. I didn't stick around long enough to see it fully escape.

After a few minutes, I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be sleeping 6 feet away from this thing and sprung back to my feet as a shiver went through my whole body. I tore down my camp in record timing and relocated to a different spot about 100 yards away.