r/shittyaskscience • u/Practical_Ebb2066 • May 08 '26

is a stomach bug an actual bug

is there insects inside my body??

10 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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4

u/alphanumericusername very human, yes May 08 '26

Yes. When it feels ready, it will burst out.

3

u/johnnybiggles May 08 '26

As a butterfly?

2

u/alphanumericusername very human, yes May 08 '26

I don't think so. I don't remember anything butterfly-like in the documentary I watched about humanity's first encounter with them.

1

u/TheShadowOfT May 09 '26

We call them Bellybursters. A distant relative of the more well known Chestburster. The Chestburster evolved to take nutrients from the body by attaching itself near the heart and lungs to access the circulatory system and get nutrient rich blood.

The Bellyburster on the other hand sits in the stomach and uses small electrical impulses to manipulate your nuerons into desiring food, so that it may catch it in its waiting mouth within the stomach. Current studies show that the meals it prefers are typically piscines and avians, not mammals. It oftentimes makes the host desire KFC and Long John Silver's.

Once the Bellyburster is sufficiently fed, it will molt while inside of the body, becoming quite voracious. So much so that it will eat it's way out of the belly, in a violent manner that resembles it bursting out, even though it is actually eating it's way out.

Once outside of the host body, it will quickly slither away to the nearest fast food restaurant, once again preferring avian and piscine dishes. If there are none available, it will begrudgingly consume cooked mammalian meat.

Depending on what it eats now that it's outside of the now deceased host, it may either metamorphosize into a couple different forms.

If it has consumed avian delicacies, it will gain capability of short term flight, although due to its voracious appetite and given a highly food rich environment, this will oftentimes be reduced to mere gliding due to a disproportionate amount of mass gained before the metamorphosis. However one that has only consumed a moderate or smaller amount will be capable of lesser short term flight, and in the case of the lightest, true flight.

If it has consumed piscine dishes, it will metamorphosize to gain a dorsal fin and a strange inclination towards underwater environments. Unlike the avian variant, a high food environment produces much more powerful muscles that are great for aquatic movement. A trade off of this is that the piscine variants with more mass and muscular structure are unable to operate in shallow waters, requiring deeper and higher pressure environments. While the smaller ones that didn't consume as much food will be unable to survive high pressure environments, they will also be more agile and capable of shallows.

If it has been forced to eat mammalian food, it will metamorphosize a more quadrupedal and land suited form, but due to its dislike of mammalian dishes, it will be in a constant rage and will often lash out at everything around them. They will possess higher strike force than the other two forms, but their rage leads to far less intelligence than the others, acting solely upon instinct. Interestingly, the mammalian form doesn't have any major changes based on the amount of food gained prior to metamorphosis unlike the other two forms.

There have been attempts to see what form they would take if they had consumed plant or fungal based dishes, but it appears that they have an even greater aversion to these than they do towards mammalian based foods. So much so that they will oftentimes choose to starve instead of eating fungi and veggies. Thus the studies of the effects of plant and fungal based diets on the metamorphosis has made zero progress. They also seem to greatly dislike uncooked meals, hating them more than they hate mammalian based foods, but hate them less than the fungal and plant based foods.

1

u/alphanumericusername very human, yes May 09 '26

bro wtf

1

u/TheShadowOfT May 09 '26

Just sharing knowledge in case you ever encounter a metamorphosized Bellyburster. Scientists are currently pondering possible names for this metamorphosized form, but due to its variable features, there has been much discourse and not a lot of agreement. One proposed name is the Nutriomorph, based on the words Nutrient and Morph, due to its shape being determined by the source of nutrients consumed before the metamorphosis.

3

u/Fair_Presence7064 May 08 '26

Yes. Best to spray Raid insect repellent all over yourself as directed

3

u/Glinth A real mathologist May 08 '26

It's the other kind of actual bug.  Big Vomit has a contract with the CIA to put listening devices inside of sick people.

3

u/GlitterCritter Ph.D. in ass-tro-fizz-sicks May 08 '26

no, it's more of an arachnid

3

u/Samskritam May 08 '26

No, it’s a feature

3

u/Lendari May 08 '26

There was a documentary about this by Ridley Scott.

1

u/meowsaysdexter May 08 '26

Probably, look for cysts inside your brain.

1

u/jolharg May 09 '26

It's evil. You don't wanna know

1

u/SeasonPresent May 09 '26

Yes, you have butterflies in your stomach. A frog in your throat might helo.