A neurosurgeon investigating a woman’s mystery symptoms in an Australian hospital has plucked a3-inch wriggling worm from the patient’s brain.

Hari Priya Bandi was performing a biopsy through a hole in the 64-year-old patient’s skull at Canberra Hospital last year when she pulled the parasite out with forceps. Bandi told Tuesday’s The Canberra Times newspaper the find made her fell "a bit sick.”

It was the larva of an Australian native roundworm not previously known to be a human parasite named Ophidascaris robertsi. The worms are commonly found in carpet pythons. Bandi is an author of an article about the extraordinary medical case published in the latest edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Disease.

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