Strepsiptera, also called stylopids or “twisted winged parasites,” are some of my absolute favorite organisms but I never saw such beautiful macro closeups until Yuta Nakase’s photostream.

In these insects, the adult males (first photo) are tiny, winged creatures with eyes structurally similar to those of trilobites (unique among all known modern organisms).

Adult females, on the other hand, spend their entire lives embedded in the body of another insect, with their heads barely poking out (second image)

Never before have I seen a head-on image of the female’s face (third). I had no idea they could what appear to be the useless vestiges of large fly-like eyes!

The rest of the female is like a soft, fleshy blob. She causes her host’s body to wrap her in its own tissues like a cancer, isolating her from the immune system. (fourth photo, and a different species from the previous)

When she wants to mate, she’ll sometimes alter the host’s behavior to wait around for a male, who will mate with her through a hole in her head, around where her mouth would be if she hadn’t evolved away from having one.

Her larvae (final photo) will live in her body and feed on her blood for a while, until she ejects them from the same face-hole. They can hop like fleas, and they use an acid secretion to melt their way into the body of a new host.

Look very closely and you’ll find a larva emerging from its mother’s “mouth” back in the second photo!

Different species of these insects have been found to parasitize bees, wasps, ants, flies, mantises, beetles and even insect groups as minor as silverfish!