“This parasite detaches the fish’s tongue, attaches itself to the fish’s mouth, and turns into its tongue,” the Galveston Island State Park says, describing the parasitic tongue-eating louse.
Galveston Island State Park
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Galveston Island State Park
“This parasite detaches the fish’s tongue, attaches itself to the fish’s mouth, and turns into its tongue,” the Galveston Island State Park says, describing the parasitic tongue-eating louse.
Galveston Island State Park
It is the stuff of nightmares, or science fiction: a parasite that desires to get inside an animal’s mouth, the place it assaults — and replaces — the tongue. That is the extremely particular, terribly icky job of the tongue-eating louse.
Fortunately for people, the isopod does not have an effect on individuals. However the Atlantic croaker and different fish are much less lucky, as a current Facebook posting by the Galveston Island State Park in Texas reveals.
“This parasite detaches the fish’s tongue, attaches itself to the fish’s mouth, and turns into its tongue,” the wildlife company mentioned, expounding on a photograph displaying the isopod curled inside a croaker’s mouth. “The parasite then feeds on the fish’s mucus. It additionally occurs to be the one recognized case the place a parasite functionally replaces a bunch’s organ.”
A number of commenters on the put up mentioned that for years now, they’ve seen the tongue-eating louse on fish in close by Gulf of Mexico waters.
Together with croaker, the parasite is often discovered within the mouths of sea trout and several other snapper species, Mark Fisher, science director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Division’s coastal fisheries division, informed Texas TV station KSAT.
“These are isopod crustaceans and are associated to the capsule bugs, a.ok.a. rolly-pollies, you will discover in your yard,” Fisher added.
Evidently a number of parasites within the louse’s Cymothoa genus use an analogous tactic.
Menhaden fish are so typically seen with their tongue changed by the isopod that they are often called “bug mouths,” in response to the web site North Carolina Fishes. They usually’re so frequent in snapper that that model of the louse has a second title: snapper-choking isopod.
