Have you seen viral videos showing fights between captive insects and small animals? Lead Stories has spotted a number of such videos recently and found that many of them were created using artificial intelligence. A growing number of social media accounts feature nothing but AI-generated videos of staged fights between captive insects, small reptiles, and animals. Many of these are published without a disclaimer saying they were made with AI. This trend follows a format established by controversial accounts featuring real videos of captive creatures unnaturally forced together to fight -- but here, the fights are AI-generated.
This article is part of a series of stories examining various types of what is commonly called "AI-slop": short, vertical videos generated with artificial intelligence tools with the aim of going viral, often by exploiting the emotions or curiosity of the viewer with made-up content.
What these 'insect and animal fight' videos look like
These videos are usually 10 to 30 seconds long and typically show a small glass or plastic terrarium with a sand floor. One creature is already in the enclosure when another, perhaps grasped by long tweezers, is introduced. At this point, one or the other will pounce and the fight begins. Many of the creatures featured are famous for a venomous bite or painful sting, such as a rattlesnake, black widow spider or giant hornet.
Some staged matches pair animals from the same ecosystem, like a mantis shrimp and a crab. Others create unlikely combinations, such as a small octopus on dry sand that suddenly has a cup of red ants dumped on it.
Some examples
One example (archived here) published by the TikTok account @bugfightclub1 shows a red ant fighting with a termite.
@bugfightclub1 Tiny insects fighting in wild arena#InsectBattle #fy #insec #bug #trend ♬ original sound - Bug Fight Club
The caption says tiny insects are fighting in a "wild arena" but the scene is not natural and the insects fighting in the clear rectangular enclosure are not real. The TikTok video has a small disclaimer that says, "creator labeled as AI-generated." The grappling action between the two insects is fast with many moving legs, pincers and antennae. When the video is paused and specific details are noted, the flaws in the AI-generated scene become more apparent.
At the opening of the 10-second video the antennae of the dark red ant appear to attach near the front of its head, close together in the area between the large mandible pincers (pictured below left). At the end of the video the antennae are pictured attached in a different place on the head, far apart and back by the eyes. During the fight the legs of the pale termite flicker as if it is scrambling. When the video is paused, the legs haven't just moved position, they vanish and reappear. In the screenshots (below right) the termite is pictured with six legs and with two legs.
(Image source: details from @bugfightclub1 post on TikTok.)
Another example (archived here), posted by the Facebook page Insect Combat, shows a scorpion placed into a plastic container with a black widow spider.
Not all examples show a fight in a terrarium. This example (archived here) from the Instagram account @natgeo7wild shows a giant water bug vs. a crayfish as if filmed with a macro lens in a natural aquatic setting.
The composite image below shows just four examples of the many TikTok accounts featuring AI-generated fights between insects, spiders, small reptiles, birds and mammals. Some of these accounts have a dramatic profile image with text promoting the bug battle theme with AI-generated graphics that mimic a movie poster. Pictured are: Nature Fight Club (archived here), insects zoon (archived here), Bug Fight Club (archived here) and Mantis Strike (archived here).
(Image source: TikTok.)
This trend appears to follow the format established by Insect Wars, an Instagram account from Morocco started in April 2023, which has 1.2 million followers as of July 17, 2026, and uses real animals in its staged fights (archived here). The tagline of the account says:
🔥 Epic Bug battles and nature's fiercest fighters! #InsectWars
A Nov. 19, 2025, press release (archived here) from the German Animal Welfare Federation (Deutscher Tierschutzbund) details the criminal animal cruelty complaint against "Insect Wars" filed with the Hamburg public prosecutor's office. This case was dismissed in May 2026 (archived here) because the available evidence did not indicate the videos had been recorded in Germany. The press release described the videos that featured real animals:
The numerous, often bloody videos show, among other things, a dwarf hamster being attacked and eaten alive by a praying mantis, a rat being killed by a centipede, a frog being attacked by water beetles, and a young gecko being eaten alive by a cricket. The animals are crammed together under unnatural conditions, leading to fights that would not occur naturally. The perpetrators deliberately prevent the animals from escaping or avoiding the fights. The conflicts are also provoked by crowding the animals together with objects such as tweezers.
Lead Stories reached out to the Deutscher Tierschutzbund for comment regarding the new trend of simulated animal cruelty in AI-generated animal fight videos. Press officer Kerstin van Kan responded by email on July 16, 2026:
Even if no real animals suffer in the creation of such videos, they should still be viewed critically from an animal welfare perspective. They can trivialize violence against animals, turn it into entertainment, and reduce society's sensitivity to the suffering of real animals. Furthermore, there is a risk that AI-generated content cannot be distinguished from genuine footage. This can make it more difficult to recognize and assess actual cases of animal abuse. Since such content continues to enjoy considerable popularity on social media, there is also a risk that more people will join the trend by creating and monetizing their own AI-generated videos.
Keywords
Here are some hashtags and keywords collected from these videos: #InsectBattle #insectfight #animalattacks #SnakeFight #naturefight #EpicBattle #predator #extreme #WildlifeDocumentary #WildlifeReels #NatureLovers #Wildlife #WildlifeMomentsNow #AnimalClipsDaily #wildlifevideo #nature #PrayingMantis #BlackWidow #TurtleEncounter #scorpion #macro #microworld #4k #realistic #aquatic #usa #NatureReelsUSA
The captions may introduce the fight as if the combatants are prize fighters: Brutal Underwater Ambush | Giant Water Bug vs Crayfish or Rattlesnake vs Camel Spider - A Lightning-Fast Desert Ambush!
How to tell they are false
The collection of thumbnails displaying all the videos produced by the account usually shows repetition of the theme -- many similar videos published in a short period of time. Some of these accounts have never posted anything but the bug battle theme, while others like Insect Combat on Facebook (archived here) switched from insect fights to Stoic philosophy quotes to police body camera videos in a matter of weeks.
Some videos do have a discreet disclaimer that they were made with AI. A TikTok video (archived here) has a disclaimer in the lower right corner that says, "Contains AI-generated media" (below left). This reel from the Facebook page Tiny Titans TV (archived here) has a watermark from Dola AI in the lower right corner (pictured below).
(Image source: post by @insectanimalplanet on TikTok and post by Tiny Titans TV on Facebook.)
The website Hive Moderation has an AI-generated content detection tool where a video or image can be uploaded. Hive determined with a 99.9% confidence rating that the giant water bug vs. crayfish video from @natgeo7wild was made with AI (pictured below).
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
If you see videos like these on social media, here are some things you can try.
First, look for AI-disclaimers added by the platform or the poster. On TikTok they might say "Contains AI-generated media" or "AI-generated" (archived here), on X they read "Made with AI" (archived here) and on Facebook/Instagram they often say "AI info" (archived here). Check the description of the video too: In some cases the creator might have added a note or a hashtag like #AI, #madewithAI or #fiction. Don't forget to check the main page of the account that posted the video either: Maybe there is a disclaimer in the bio and in some cases AI use is really obvious when an account is posting dozens and dozens of variations of the same type of video.
Don't stop at the account that posted the video: Maybe they copied it from somewhere else. Use a tool to take a screenshot of the first frame of the video and run it through a reverse image searching tool to see where else on the internet it appears. It may have originated on an account that posts satire, AI-creations or actual art.
If you are still not sure, try downloading the video itself. There are several AI detection tools that can tell you if there are watermarks or other technical characteristics present in the video that would indicate it was likely made with AI.
Finally, use common sense: If the video shows an event that would otherwise be newsworthy, use a news search engine to check if it has been reported on by a news service you trust. Also pay close attention to the video itself: Look for physical impossibilities or glitches typical of AI-generated footage like:
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People or things appearing (or disappearing) out of thin air
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Objects behaving in physically impossible ways (heavy objects falling slowly, rigid objects bending ...)
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Garbled writing, oddly shaped letters or signs
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People or objects blending into or moving through each other
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Inconsistencies between different shots of the video (extra architectural elements in buildings, changing backgrounds, differences in clothing or hairstyle)
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An audio track that sounds strange: flat, unnatural speech, scripted-sounding yelling from bystanders ("Did you see that? OMG!"), sound effects being out of sync with events.
Unsure about a video? Email [email protected] and we will take a look!
These materials were developed in 2026 for the Prebunking at Scale project, with support from the European Fact-Checking Standards Network. If you share this on social media, use #prebunkingatscale.
