A new study, published in BMC Biology, discovered prehistoric wasp preserved in amber is turning heads in the world of entomology with a rear end straight out of a science fiction movie. With a bizarre Venus flytrap-shaped abdomen,

Researchers named the parasitic creature Sirenobethylus charybdis —both after the sirens of Greek mythology that lured in sailors to their doom and after Charybdis, a mythical sea monster that created large whirlpools to drag its unsuspecting victims underwater.

Modern-day parasitoids in the same superfamily—Chrysidoidea—include cuckoo wasps (which, as their name suggests, lay their eggs in the nests of their hosts) and bethylid wasps (which paralyze their prey before hiding the body and laying eggs into the poor victim.)