This Bug Has a Passenger. The Passenger Is Flying the Bug.

Inside the body of a stink bug called Macropes obnubilus lives a parasite called Blissoxenos esakii. It has lived there since it was a larva. It will live there until the male is ready to mate — at which point it needs to get out.

There is one problem. The exit is under the stink bug's wings.

Researchers at the University of Tsukuba were the first to directly observe what happens next. When the parasite is ready to emerge, the stink bug lifts its wings. It does not lift its wings at any other time. Not when unparasitized bugs are observed under identical conditions. Only when the parasite needs out, only long enough for the passenger to climb out.

Whether the parasite is actively triggering this behavior or the host is reacting to something else entirely is not yet known. What is known is that the door opens precisely when it needs to.

Forty years of fieldwork. Nature is still finding new ways to be strange.

Read the full story at University of Tsukuba, April 10, 2026

Hot Take: The stink bug is running around thinking it's in charge. The parasite has been in the driver's seat the whole time. Hertz doesn't offer this package.