October 31, 2012

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13 Horrifying Ways To Die (Arthropod Edition)

By Alex Wild

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Scared of insects, spiders, or other leggy arthropods? It could be worse. You could be one of them. At that size you face an array of dangers unlike anything you know from your comfortably large human existence.

Here are just a few of the many perils to worry about as an arthropod.

1. Your guts are impaled on spiky ant teeth.

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2. Your innards are suddenly sucked out by a predatory maggot.

3. Your brain is invaded by a zombie fungus that directs you to an ideal spot for your parasite to release spores.

4. One of your friends turns out to be a giant hungry spider.

5. Wasp larvae eat you alive while you can't move.

6. Your head takes a direct injection of Dracula Ant venom.

7. You are pulled from your comfortable house by ravaging hordes of army ants.

8. Your body is slowly weakened and destroyed by wasp grubs feeding on your insides.

9. You are hunted incessantly by a pack of determined ants.

10. You fall into a pit with a voracious predator at the bottom.

11. A fly lays an egg in you that causes your head to fall off.

12. Your corpse is dragged around as a trophy by a giant, leggy predator.

13. A giant hand mashes you to the wall.

Actually, this last one doesn't seem so bad compared to the others. At least it's fast.

Happy Halloween!

Alex Wild is Curator of Entomology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies the evolutionary history of ants. In 2003 he founded a photography business as an aesthetic complement to his scientific work, and his natural history photographs appear in numerous museums, books and media outlets.

More by Alex Wild

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