The one that I learned about in college was this thing called a horse hair worm is a parasite

that grows up inside the body of a cricket.

And when it wants to come out, it's an aquatic worm.

It has to emerge in water.

And it's inside of an animal that lives on land.

And so it takes over the mind of the cricket.

It forces it to find a puddle of water so that the parasite can safely emerge in the

water.

Anan Varma talking about a type of zombie parasite that he photographed for a National

Geographic cover story.

Now that may sound kind of out there, but zombie parasites are just the sort of thing we've

come to expect from Anan.

Want a picture of a hummingbird's tongue or slow motion video of a vampire bat catching

a mouse?

We've got Anan on speed dial.

I'm Peter Gwynn and you're listening to overheard at National Geographic.

But for more than a year, you've heard me introduce this as a show where we ease drop

on the wild conversations we have here at Nageo.

A lot of those conversations are about scientific expeditions or other interesting questions

we're chasing after.

But some of the astonishing stories we hear are about our contributors and their personal

journeys.

...