A menacingly large insect was caught on camera crawling up the walls of a building in Brazil.

The winged critter with large mandibles is a Dobsonfly, an aquatic insect that are found around Asia, the Americas and southern Africa.

The filmer explained: "The one in the video is a female of the species Corydalus batesii. Although it has terrifying jaws, the males have much longer ones.

"Between two and three thousand eggs are laid on leaves, rocks, or any other materials in contact with unpolluted water. The larvae are aquatic, and are between 5 and 7 cm long.

"They can live like that for five years, preying on smaller aquatic organisms, and taking shelter in submerged tree hollows.

"When they finally leave the water, they dig a hole in the ground, sometimes under a rock or a tree, where they undergo they pupate for about a month, when they emerge as the winged insect seen in the video.

"They can go through 12 stages of development in total, and the adult form only lives between 8 and 24 days."