Health officials in Japan were left scrambling when a press conference about the dangers of ticks went horribly awry.
The strange scene can be traced back to one worker's ill-conceived idea to bring a living ixodid tick to the event so that members of the press could see the insect they were warning the public about.
After a series of photos were taken, someone suddenly noticed that the menacing bug had gone missing and was, therefore, scurrying around the room looking for its next victim.
No doubt unnerved by the worrisome parasite latching on to one of them, reporters and health officials on hand searched the room and, presumably, their own bodies for the rogue insect.
Unsurprisingly, given its small size, the tick was never found and workers were forced to fumigate the room multiple times to assuage concerns about the runaway creature.
In what may be the understatement of the year, one official mused, "we should have taken better safety precautions."
While that may be the case, there's always a chance that the weird turn of events was a blessing in disguise if reporters managed to convey how terrified they were by the incident to their viewers.
Source: The Mainichi