Every year, Japanese pesticide company Earth Corporation holds a ‘transcendence ceremony’ at the Myodoji Temple in Ako City to honor insects that sacrificed their lives for research purposes.

Earth Corporation prides itself on being the ‘no. 1 preferred household insecticide company in Japan’, a status it has achieved over decades of research and trial & error. In order to test the efficacy of its products, the company uses them on various species of insects at a proprietary research facility in Ako City, and some of those bugs inevitably die in the process. The company breeds the bugs it uses for testing, but that doesn’t make their sacrifice meaningless, and to show that it doesn’t take the tiny creatures for granted, Earth Corporation holds an honorary ceremony at the Myodoji Temple in Ako City.

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Capitojoppa amazonica is a newly-discovered genus of parasitic wasps that stabs its victims with its giant ovipositor and sucks the blood out of them before laying its eggs inside.

The terrifying insect was discovered by scientists from the University of Utah while surveying the National Reserve of Allpahuayo-Mishana in Peru. They laid large netted devices called malaise traps to capture as many flying insects as possible. Among the creatures caught in their traps was a bright yellow wasp with a giant almond-shaped head and tube-like organs sticking out of it. Scientists concluded that the specimen, an adult female, was a new ‘solitary endoparasitoid’ – meaning it lays a single egg inside the body of its host (caterpillars, beetles, and even spiders). The egg hatches in a matter of days, after which the wasp larvae start to consume the host’s inside.

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The Brazilian treehopper, a pea-sized, rainforest-dwelling insect that spends its days munching on treetop leaves, is almost certainly the most otherworldly-looking creature on our planet.

From the double-nosed Andean tiger hound, to the painting-like “Picasso fish“, we’ve featured our share of strange-looking creatures on Oddity Central, but none of them come close to the bizarre Bocydium globulare or the Brazilian treehopper. This tiny, solitary insect looks like something out of a sci-fi/horror film, featuring a headdress made up of four spheres of chitin covered in many bristles, which suggests they have some sensory purpose, but scientists have no idea what these weird balls actually do.

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The Diabolical Ironclad Beetle is one of the most resilient beings on the planet. Its protective shell can withstand forces that would pulverize most other living things.

In 2015, when entomologists told Jesus Rivera that a beetle found primarily on the west coast of North America had this “superpower” that allowed it to survive being run over by a car, he didn’t believe them. So he staged a rudimentary experiment, laying this nondescript black beetle on a a pillow of dirt in a parking lot and had a friend run it over with a Toyota Camry, twice. The bug played dead afterwards, but as he was poking it, Rivera realized it was very much alive. The bug scientists were right, this beetle could easily survive being run over by cars. Jesus ended up spending his doctoral career studying the beetle’s superpower to find out what made it so strong.

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The assassin bug is a fascinating insect for many reasons, but the one that really stands out is its gruesome camouflage, which consists of the carcasses of its victims glued to its back.

There are around 7,000 known species of assassin bugs in the world, ranging from 4 to 40 mm in length and sharing the same formidable weapon – a sharp, curved, needle-like structure called a “rostrum”. It’s this rostrum that they use to stab their prey – usually other insects – and inject them with a poisonous saliva that liquifies their innards. When the victim stops moving, the assassin bug will start slurping away at its inside, until only the shell remains. That shell is used by some assassin bug species as camouflage, and some specimens have been observed walking around with a mound of insect carcasses glued to their backs.

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A California woman swallows about five live Chinese weevils every day as a way to prevent the growth of cancerous tumors and boost her immune system.

Marcela Iglesias, a mother-of three from Los Angeles, California, believes that consuming live Chinese Weevils every day could be the best way to prevent cancer, treat chronic pain, arthritis and various digestive problems. Swallowing them alive is critical as these bugs allegedly release a toxin called “coleotoxin” when they die, and you want that to happen when they reach your digestive system. This theory is supported by a 2011 study which found that coleotoxin reduced tumor cell growth by more than 70 per cent. That research is heavily contested by many in the scientific community, but Iglesias doesn’t really care, saying that even if the bugs don’t actually help prevent cancer, they are still a great source of protein.

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The Tarantula Hawk is a type of wasp with an excruciatingly painful sting that lasts only three minutes, but feels like a lifetime. The pain, rated four (highest) on the Schmidt sting pain index,  is best described as “fiercely electric”. Bug experts and people who have been stung claim the pain is a lot like getting electrocuted. And the best strategy to deal with it is – get this – to lie down and start screaming!

According to a report in the Journal of the Kansas Entomology Society, “Tarantula hawks produce large quantities of venom and their stings produce immediate, intense, excruciating short term pain in envenomed humans.” The report adds that “the instantaneous pain of a tarantula hawk sting is the greatest recorded for any stinging insect,” but “the venom itself lacks meaningful vertebrate toxicity.” In other words, the wasp’s sting isn’t deadly, but it’s so painful that it’ll make you want to die.

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Have you ever wondered how the insects in movies do exactly what they’re supposed to? How do they know they’re even in a movie scene and play along with the plot? Like the spider that bites Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) in Spiderman. The bees that swarm Matt Damon in We Bought a Zoo. The spider that walks four feet and slips into a slipper in the cult classic, Arachnophobia. Or the giant mosquitos in Jurassic Park.

It turns out that there’s actually a person behind all these shots, manipulating the insects to do his bidding. That man is Steven Kutcher, 69, an entomologist who has been working in Hollywood since 1976. He has been a part of over 100 feature films, numerous commercials, music videos and TV movies.

“I think of myself as a bug wrangler, a consultant. I’m not the cheap guy who trains dogs and chickens and happens to have a tarantula,” he said. “I’m both a scientist and an artist. I think Steven Spielberg said I was the first entomologist in the film industry. I brought the science of insect behavior to the film industry.” It’s pretty obvious that Mr. Kutcher takes immense pride in what he does.

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