The footage is part of a film called Wrought, which explores the relationship between people, decay and rotting.

In the clip, a dead pompano fish can be seen on its side as dermestids—also known as skin beetles—begin swarming over the carcass. Skin beetles feast off the skin in a process called skeletonization—when the skeleton is gradually exposed as the flesh decays.

The fish is gradually documented in various states of decomposition, as the beetles continue to devour its flesh. Eventually, only the bones and debris are left.

Wrought videographer and editor, Joel Penner, who captured the footage, told Newsweek that this timelapse was filmed over two weeks.

“[It was filmed] in a small shack in the backyard, and the fish was in a terrarium with the beetles. And then there was a camera mounted on top, taking a photo automatically every two minutes or something. So then [we] had like 10 or 20,000 photos afterwards,” Penner said.

Skin beetles eat organic matter that is dead, dried or decaying. This can be in the form of plants or meat, and even rugs, carpets and wool at times. The beetles can be seen with the naked eye, however they are still incredibly small. They are usually between 1 to 12 mm in size. They particularly like to swarm on soft parts of flesh, such as eyeballs.

“At the beginning of the clip, there’s a crosshatch pattern on the skin. And that’s because fish skin is actually pretty tough compared to the skin of like a rabbit or something….So I the first shot that I did, the beetles just sort of bored holes in the skin to access the flesh, but they didn’t take away the skin so I sort of like cut the skin up so that they would say we just sort of like fall off,” Penner said.

Wrought writer and narrator Anna Sigrithur told Newsweek that the film as a whole was made to challenge views on rot and decay.

“What I hope to deliver with the story of the film, is to challenge some of the easy binaries. Rot is something that’s very much associated with morality, we say something going bad or something spoiled, rotten or whatever. And when we invoke moral questions, we kind of go into a binary place of like, good or bad,” Sigrithur said. “So I think this story is really hoping to get people, to not only challenge disgust, but challenge the like the black and white thinking.”

The clip was reposted to Reddit, where it fascinated social media users.

Despite the decay, one user described it as “very artistic” and therapeutic to watch.

Another said: “Unsettling cinema at its finest.”

“That was so organized, bugs are so f***ing COOL,” another user said.

Wrought can be viewed here.