This Wasp Mind-Controls Spiders While Eating Them Alive

If you're not a fan of spiders, feast your eyes on this.

It's the larva of a parasitic wasp

sucking an arachnid dry.

And it is, simply put, not a pleasant way to go.

But that isn't even the weirdest bit about

this bizarre interaction.

This spider builds two kinds of webs,

one it uses for catching prey,

and another that's simpler and less sticky,

as you can see in this clearly not Hollywood quality video.

It uses that web for when it needs to molt.

It's not a good idea to snag prey while the spider

is shedding it's exoskeleton

and waiting for a new one to harden up.

After the wasp mom lays her egg on the spider host,

the resulting larva starts to slowly suck the

juices out of it.

But the larva is also mind controlling it to build

a structure similar to the minimalist web.

Exactly how the hell a parasite can do that,

isn't yet clear.

Once the web is finished, the larva sucks the life out

of the spider and then spins a cocoon for itself.

Because the web reflects UV light, it acts like

a traffic cone, protecting it from birds,

which see UV light that might crash into it and

destroy the larva while it's transforming into a wasp.

And when it does, the whole weird circus starts anew.