Watch out for the tongue biter, unless you want a little animal to live in your mouth and replace your tongue. (Photo at right, yeah I had to post it). No, not just a bad kisser, or a child with sharp teeth, this tongue biter is a parasitic louse that eats the tongue of a host fish and then settles into place and replaces the fish's tongue.
It seems that the tongue biter draws blood from an artery in the host fish, and also controls the fish's eating and gathers food bits that it steals from the host. Yuck.
The tongue biter was found in Australia in a recent ocean research expedition, along with many other strange things.
See you knew you were drawn to the ocean, and especially to an ocean blog that brings you all the news that is too messed up to find anywhere else. Can you really believe that that fish has an animal living in place of it's tongue? Tweet
26 comments:
oh my!
Ewww. I hate that every time I see it. Someone had shared this in their Google Reader one day and it was gross then too. Lol
i don't know i just don't know.my blog is slowwarrior.blogspot.com
Wow, creepy!
Oh the other hand, you always have a friend.
- odograph
Are you frickin kidding me? Holy crap I should have just went to bed tonight instead of browsing blogs! AHHHHHH Im gonna have me some nightmares tonight!
Thats amazing ..
How the other fish survive with this type of insect inside .....
http://discussionroom1.blogspot.com/
omg.
that is freakin weird, someone controlling your tongue. but maybe it will ensure that i don't binge.
Scared. I am.
Yeah. That's rediculous. I wonder how this thing adapted to latch on to a host's tongue. How many times did this parasite group have to be eaten in order to finally cling to the tongue and live there? I will not swim in the ocean ever again. . .
i knew i visited this blog for a reason: new discoveries! thanks for sharing ... now i can forward this link to my gf to gross her out. thank you! :-D
That seems... sorry, I cannot resist...fishy.
Parasites! so interestingly weird.
I am speechless...
So scary, having another living thing in the body. So ALIEN!
Sick, and fascinating at the same time. Love your blog.
Hope you're having a great week.
I ended up having a nightmare about this little thing after reading this post....
Reminds me of the evil looking creature we found in the mouth of small yellow tail (no relation to the deep sea going ones, just our name for them) we caught off the Russell Wharf in the bay of Islands in NZ, never even considered eating them after that.
Though they were OK for bait to catch snapper and great live bait for Kingi's and (smaller ones) John Dory - the most beautiful fish flesh I have tasted, melts in my mouth.
I haven't fished in years and strangely this draws me back to the source.
Madness
i love anonymous comment. we have mites that live at the base of our eye lashed....
Creepy, but i love your blog and the fact you come up with, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
that is disgusting. check out my blog to find out what radisoft.net is creating. radisoft.blogspot.com
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Looks like an alien from another planet. What worries some is that this parasite could be expanding its range. They seem to prefer the Snapper, so at least they have good taste. Nice picture of one.
btw...I have many links to the parasites that control Wall Street on my investmenttipsblog site.
omg *cries
AMAZING
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