Barnacle that eats sharks

Parasites stir mixed emotions, they're biologically interesting but often gruesome.  This one eats sharks, but only a little bit at a time.

Here's an unusual parasitic barnacle that attaches to sharks and makes a living using an unusual root-like organ that penetrates the sharks flesh and absorbs food from the shark's body fluids.

This barnacle seems more exciting and scary than the mild-mannered little fortresses that cling to rocks and pilings and filter plankton for food.

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Cats can rot your brain

How would you feel if your brain was rotting away thanks to someone else's pet? Would you care if the pet was cute and cuddly, or would you just want the pet to go away?

This is a real problem, although mostly not for people. Sea otters are being killed by a parasite that causes a brain disease. It's Toxoplasma gondii and it's the reason pregnant women aren't supposed to change cat litter boxes.

Cats appear to shed the parasite eggs in their poop and freshewater runoff carries the eggs into the ocean where they infect and sometimes kill sea otters.

It'll be tough to save sea otters when they're competing with cats for love.

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Tongue biter too strange to be real

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?

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