Terrifying Mystery Behind Viral ‘Leaf’ Video Has Everyone on Edge—What Really Happened?

You ever stumble across something so bizarre you almost wish you hadn’t? Well, brace yourself—there’s a “leaf” out there that’s actually a spider playing dress-up, and it’s not your average creepy crawler. Back in 2015, scientists stumbled upon this sneaky critter in India’s southwest mountains and named it Eriovixia gryffindori—yep, after Godric Gryffindor, because it looks like the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter! Imagine picking up what seems like a harmless dead leaf, only to have a spider burst out and ruin your day. Nature’s little prankster is a master of disguise to avoid becoming someone else’s snack, but it’s left people on social media absolutely horrified. Makes you wonder—what other wild creatures are out there hiding in plain sight, just waiting to freak us out? LEARN MORE.

Some things are better not knowing, and we can only apologise in advance for alerting you to a ‘leaf’ that’s actually not a leaf at all.

Back in 2015, something called a Eriovixia gryffindori, was discovered in India.

Now, the problem is, it looks a lot like any leaf you’d find on the ground.

But it’s not a leaf – far from it, actually.

In a post on Reddit, one person shared a video of the creature, writing: “This dead leaf that isn’t quite a leaf, this is leaf-mimicking spider (Eriovixia gryffindori), discovered in 2015.”

The video shows what looks like a normal leaf, but things get rather creepy when it begins to move.

The person in the video picks the ‘leaf’ up, and out of nowhere, a huge spider emerges.

The spider looks like a leaf (Reddit)

The new spider species was only discovered 10 years ago, in the mountains of south-west India.

Thanks to its leaf-like appearance, people have compared it to the Sorting Hat out of Harry Potter.

In fact, that’s where it gets its name from, named after Godric Gryffindor.

“We were searching the area (when) we bumped into the spider,” researcher Javed Ahmed told BBC’s Five Live.

“When we found it we decided that we were going to name it after the sorting hat.”

The spider mimics the leaf to try and avoid predators.

People on social media have been left horrified by the spider, with one writing: “Say what you want about Australia but at least our spiders are honest!!”

While another said: “Is it on me? I feel like it’s on me.”

And a third added: “I guess I’m just going to have to cancel my plans of going anywhere ever again.”

And a fourth wrote: “Why does everything have to be a mimicking SPIDER!!”

People said it looked like the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter (Cesc Maymo/Getty Images)

Another pointed out that there’s likely heaps of undiscovered species we’re yet to learn about.

“There are also probably countless critters in the ground that we don’t know about because there are parts of the world that no one is digging into and documenting,” they said.

“And even when it’s done, if you were to dig in 3 different places in the Amazon a few miles apart, you’d likely get completely different species. Not to mention the extremely specialised animals that survive on specific plants or other animals, all of which have evolved in high competition environments and take one tiny sliver of the available resources because those were not fully utilised.”