Science Memes

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Nightmare fuel (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua

This is an example of the type of tongue-replacing creature you found, not necessarily the same species.

So that's a fun twofer: you know a possible name for what you saw, and you know that a parasite replacing a host's organ is one of nature's fun survival strategies!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Seems like a similar species is common where I am.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceratothoa_oestroides

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Haha welp, I'm out

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Horrifying. Thanks for the link, although to be honest I probably could have googled “fish tongue parasite isopod” at some point in the past decade+.

Interesting that the Wikipedia page has photos that wouldn’t have rang the bell for me, the one I remember was exactly like the one in the post.

Edit: the article describes a habitat that is pretty far from me, this was in Lebanon in the eastern Mediterranean over a decade ago. Could be a similar species.