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(Some pictures may cause discomfort, please read with caution!) ）
In the Gulf of California, novice fishermen have to survive a psychological crit.
When they catch nets and sea bass, snappers, and silver croakers, they will find that many fish seem to have something hidden in their mouths.
Open the mouth of the fish and look at it, and a pair of small eyes stare at you.
...... Very nice and refreshing.
The insect hidden in the mouth of the fish is a crustacean parasite, scientifically named Cymothoa exigua, Chinese name is the shrunken-headed fish lice.
They are found in the southern part of the Gulf of California, in parts of the Gulf of Guayaquil and the Atlantic Ocean, and in recent years have spread to British waters.
The shrunken-headed fish lice did not accidentally burrow into the mouth of the fish.
They eat the tongue of the fish, and the dove occupies the magpie's nest, using itself as the new tongue of the fish, replacing the organs to keep the fish alive.
This is the only known way parasites replace host organs.
Although the picture is very frightening, this parasitic relationship has existed for many years, and the fish have adapted.
Like people, fish have tongues. But the fish's tongue is not well developed, with only a flattened hyoid bone with a little soft tissue on top.
Fish tongues often do very limited things, and they can only move like pistons, either sucking food into their mouths and helping to send them down, or squeezing water out of their gills.
These two things are important to fish, determining whether the fish can obtain nutrients and breathe freely.
Unfortunately, because the richest location of the tongue meat is just close to the gills, it is an easy-to-access hole, which is too attractive for parasites.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, a crustacean bug called isopoda discovered this foraging shortcut.
They pass through the gills, burrow into the mouth of the fish, and hold the tongue firmly with their slender legs, just like a surfer clings to the surfboard.
They suck the blood from the tongue and let it dry out until the soft tissues begin to atrophy, leaving only one hyoid bone.
Some will eat the tongue of the fish directly, chew it up, and drink the mucus of the fish as a drink.
Gradually, this insect evolved into what is now commonly known as the "tongue-eating lice", that is, the shrunken-headed fish lice.
They have a unique way of life.
Shortly after being born, when the shrunken-headed fish lice were only a few millimeters in size, it struggled to find a good host in the sea. The search time is usually only a few hours, after which you will die of starvation or be eaten.
Some of the shrunken-headed fish lice were lucky enough to find a fish, maybe a clownfish, maybe a snapper, and they weren't very selective in terms of species.
After burrowing into the gills, they become the new lords of the fish's mouth, and these invaders are all males, relying on the blood of the tongue and slowly growing into adult worms.
When it is time to mate, some of the male lice will become females and wait for the male to come.
If a male rings the gills (well, it's not so polite), they mate and reproduce in the fish's mouth, and the female puts the fertilized eggs into the ocean for the baby fish lice to find a new host.
If two males occupy a fish mouth together, during the mating period, one of the males will automatically become female and complete the mating.
Older fish, opening their mouths, can see more than one worm inside, and the horror effect is doubled.
(I won't put the picture here, it's really...-.) -）
Eating fish with their tongues sucking fish blood, this parasite looks really disgusting.
But the scientists found that the parasitic fish did not suffer much in terms of health.
In 2006, scientists compared parasitic fish with normal fish and found no significant differences in their weight, body length, and lifespan.
The biggest difference between those fish whose tongues are sucked dry and ordinary fish is that they are small animals with long eyes in their mouths.
This is because the head-shrinking fish lice actively completed part of the work of the "tongue" in order to keep the host alive as long as possible.
Parasite expert Adrienne Mora says that while parasites like to abuse the tongues of fish, they no doubt want their hosts to survive because once the fish dies, they have no choice but to "jump ship."
Adult shrunken-headed fish lice do not swim as they did as children, and once they leave their mouths, most of them sink to the bottom of the sea.
In order to ensure that the host can absorb nutrients, the fish lice will help it tear the food into pieces, push the food into the digestive tract, and of course eat some of it.
Rick Brusca, a marine parasite expert at the University of Arizona, once studied a group of parasitic snappers and found that their tongues had completely disappeared, but the fish looked very healthy and happy, and their stomachs were full of food.
Bruska examined the back of the shrunken-headed fish lice in the fish's mouth and found that there were many small abrasions and grooves on it, which were caused by the impact.
This means that fish already use the parasite as their tongue and will frequently hit it in the palate. He called this the "mechanical replacement of the tongue."
The parasite, which can replace the main organ of the host, currently has only one head lice.
It has little effect on the health of fish, but on the psychology of people ...
Well, very big...
In 2015, a British woman was cooking dinner for her children at home, and when she opened the can of tuna, she saw a strange head with round eyes looking at her.
She put the photo on Twitter, causing a heated discussion (and nausea), and when the discussion had gone astray to aliens, the staff at the Natural History Museum in London came out and explained that it was tongue-eating lice.
The canning company asked the woman to send the cans back, but the same happened to the other cans, with the head of a shrunken fish lice in the minced fish meat.
In Puerto Rico, a large supermarket chain was also sued for shrunken-headed fish lice, and customers found many bugs in the East Pacific snapper they sold, saying they had been poisoned after eating it.
However, experts say that the head-shrinking fish lice are harmless to the human body and can be eaten normally after cooking.
But even so, this shape, this way of being, just look at people can't do it.
The living headless fish lice are also quite powerful, and if a person puts his finger into the mouth of the fish when handling the fish, he will be bitten by the headless fish lice. For fishermen, this is common.
Hey, although I know that nature is magical, but this parasite can appear, how to say...
Let's bring horror movies to life.. -
ref：
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/tongue-biting-isopod/619430/?utm_source=digg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua
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Survey Corps Health Captain: This is true, but the key has no impact on the fish, and the mutually beneficial relationship between the two parties is general for humans. When I was a child, I seemed to have seen this kind of thing, as if it were an animal world? It's okay~ ~~~
Floating Lantern Immersion Moon: Good weird, take another look
Qing Gengyu: Will there be a day when the parasites that can replace human organs will also evolve lips? (In fact, this is not as scary as the crab, not the picture, referring to how to treat the host.)
Peach in the morning light: It's okay to even want to see a picture of a lot of parasites in the mouth
Asakura Yuki: What a realistic version of this parasitic beast
My cat: I will never let my mother buy fish heads again
Kalihome: Canned fish is really dripping too hades
All the disturbances are empty: pinch mom oh what the world is doing
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