As discussed so elegantly by Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science
Brian Brown from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has just discovered a Thai phorid that’s just 0.4 millimetres in length. It’s the world’s tiniest fly, small enough to sit comfortably on the eye of a common housefly. It’s easily small enough to fit inside the head of even the smallest acrobat ant.
But it gets better or worse depending on your perspective
Some flies, known as phorids, specialise in decapitating ants in a gruesome way. They lay their eggs inside their victims. When the maggots hatch, they move towards the ant’s head, where they gorge upon the brain and other tissues. The ant stumbles about in a literally mindless stupor until the connection between its head and body is dissolved by a enzyme released from the maggot. The head falls off and the adult flies burst out.