Here’s One of the Creepiest Things You Could Catch While Fishing

Wildlife officers in Texas not too long ago documented a peculiar pure horror: a fish with its tongue changed by a parasitic crustacean often called an isopod. These isopods aren’t harmful to people and are often not lethal to their hosts, however their distinctive lifestyle is one other instance of the terrors created by means of evolution.

Isopods are an historic lineage of crustacean, thought to date back a minimum of 300 million years. Their identify is derived from Greek, with “pod” that means ft and “iso” that means equal, which is a reference to their seven evenly matched pairs of limbs. There are an estimated 10,000-plus species of isopod, however not like most different crustaceans, many isopods have grow to be land dwellers. The isopods most individuals is likely to be aware of are woodlice, additionally referred to as pillbugs or roly poly bugs—after all, they’re neither true bugs nor lice.

Woodlice and lots of different isopods are nature’s composters, feeding on the decaying matter round them; others forage for meals by straining water for tiny plankton; and some are predators. But essentially the most notorious isopods are fish parasites, together with the tongue-stealer that was recorded by a Texas Parks and Wildlife worker at Galveston Island State Park this month. In a Facebook publish from the park’s social media account, they detailed discovering the parasite within the mouth of an Atlantic croaker fish, which they glibly consult with as a “Martian.”

This species of isopod is called the tongue-eating louse (Cymothoa exigua), an apt description. When younger, a male isopod will connect itself to the hapless fish’s gills. As it grows up, it migrates as much as the tongue and alter its intercourse to grow to be feminine. At the identical time, the isopod makes use of its entrance claws to slice and eat the fish’s tongue; then it scooches proper in and attaches itself to the stump the place the tongue as soon as laid and takes over. To add another creep issue, different juvenile males connected to the fish will mate with a mature feminine whereas that is all occurring. And as soon as the eggs are fertilized and the younger are despatched out into the water, the terrible life cycle begins anew.

Remarkably, the poor fish does appear to make use of the isopod as its tongue from then on. And except it’s closely parasitized, the fish lives so long as regular, although it might not eat as simply as earlier than and may grow to be underweight in consequence. Assuming you could possibly ask them, they in all probability wouldn’t be too happy about the entire thing. While sure different parasites are identified to take away a bunch’s body parts to make room for itself, the tongue-eating louse is the one identified parasite beneficiant sufficient to select up the slack and perform the defunct organ’s features.

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Atlantic croakers are a standard host for tongue-eating louses, as are a number of different fishes, together with the pink snapper. But these isopods aren’t a risk to people, and different isopods are even eaten as delicacies. For these within the Halloween spirit, although, a fictionalized and hormone-crazed model of the isopod did serve because the villain of the pretty respectable (on this reporter’s opinion) found-footage flick The Bay in 2012. Of course, the real-life story’s lots scary as is.