headless wasp!

Your bizarreness for the day: a headless wasp picks up its head and flies off:

This isn't so bizarre to me, though: as a cruel little kid, I put insects through the wringer, and figuring out that insects still have some level of function when headless was one of my earliest discoveries. The question of insect nociception isn't one I thought about when I was five, but these days, I either give an insect a quick death via spray or open-hand smack, or I let the insect go on its merry way by letting it out the door.

There are some insects I'm much more inclined to kill than others: mosquitoes and flies are probably at the top of that list. For other pests, like crickets (which I saw a lot of indoors in Virginia but never indoors here in Korea), well, it depends upon the circumstances of our meeting. If it's a "him or me" situation, the cricket's dead. If it's more of a "hey, little buddy" situation, and I'm feeling at one with nature, then I'll show the insect some clementia, e.g., if I'm contentedly resting in a shwimteo.

Even weirder are the animals with more sophisticated nervous systems that can survive for a while without heads. I'm thinking, of course, of chickens. The idea that a chicken can survive for over a year without its head still weirds me out.

By galline standards, a headless wasp is no big deal.

ADDENDUM: the YouTube algorithm led me from the above video to this fucked-up compilation of headless, skinned, and gutted animals still writhing and wriggling and crawling and biting. The creepy music accompanying the visuals makes for an extra-special treat.