The best BFFs know that BFF #inspo is all around! These six parasites are the real deal, sticking with their crew through thick and thin because they need each other to take advantage of their host. After all, you haven’t truly lived until you and your squad have burst out of the flesh of another species together! Now crank up that Drake song you all know the words to!
Deer Ticks
There’s strength in numbers—just look at the deer tick! Ticks hatch in groups of hundreds, and can collectively drain enough blood (or mojitos! Lol, right Carrie??) to kill even large mammals like dogs and moose (or large men like that sexy Cuban guy, right Abby? lol). It’s the animal world’s version of showing up to a Jason Derulo concert with the whole crew: One person doing the routine from the music video is just sad, but fifteen people doing it is totally fire! #SquadGoals!
Parasitoid Wasps
Friends who pregame together stay together, and there’s no better pregame than festering as larvae inside the moist body of a dying caterpillar. Any true squad needs to be able to eviscerate the resources of its host (thanks for the mixies, Bea! Love you) and climb (stumble, hah) out of the corpse (AKA Bea’s apartment), ready to take on the night. #SquadGoals!
Cookie Cutter Sharks
Who says you can’t have fun on a night in with your BFFs? (Besides Erica, ugh lighten up girl.) Instead of going out, grab some wine and draw inspiration from the cookie cutter shark, which uses its jaw to saw off identical circles of flesh from a range of undersea creatures. Every squad should have a default DIY project that can cheer everyone up and provide the nutrients your crew needs to survive. AKA cookies! (Gluten-free for Shay, duh.) #SquadGoals!
Oxpeckers
The realest friends have your back at all times, like how avian oxpeckers remove scabs from mammals’ open wounds to keep the blood flowing for other parasites. It’s called an open tab, people! Sneaking a shareable set of 12 vodka mini-bottles into the movie theater or retweeting your friend who has fewer followers than you (no offense Sadie, you totally deserve more) is a given, just like scab removal. #SquadGoals!
Ascaris Roundworms
Sometimes the best examples of #SquadGoals are on the inside! A glam group photo can make or break a night in the same way that a clinical x-ray can make or break an infection of roundworms lodged in a patients’ digestive system. There’s room for everyone in the perfect Insta—no matter how tightly coiled the mass of bodies is! Please stop cropping me out, Lorraine. #SquadGoals!
Lice
The head is the rooftop bar of the human body, and you can always tell when lice are blowing up the place! Draw fashion inspiration from the distinctive color of the white eggs they leave behind for your mandatory (ahem, Annie) squad uniform. Better yet, get matching t-shirts for that upcoming vacation so the entirety of Key West can see you coming! No lavender spray for you ladies—these oh-so-nice ‘lice’ are here to stay. #SquadGoals!
If your team isn’t living up to these #SquadGoals, make like a roundworm being passed through the bowels of livestock and get the heck out of there! However, if you and your BFFs can work this late-night-Discovery-Channel-level inspo, you’ll worm your way into friendships that last a lifetime!
