Many of them exist on the host for years, eating particles of skin, hair and sucking blood. Some are more dangerous, capable of crippling and even killing the host.
He chooses fish as his hosts, less often birds of prey, but can settle in a pigeon and even a chicken.
Appearance
Appearance - something between crustaceans and wood lice, ranging in size from one and a half to 4 centimeters.
Usually it is white, milky, less often yellowish color with small black eyes.
Symothoa exigua living in the throat
Lifestyle and reproduction
Woodlice enters the fish's mouth through the gills with the flow of water. It digs into the tongue with special claws and immediately begins to drink blood from it.
Already in the mouth, it transforms into a female, which waits for the male to penetrate the fish and fertilize it.
Two woodlice settled in the throat of a fish
The tongue woodlice chooses one host for its entire life, feeding on fish mucus and the blood of the fish itself or its victims.
It is interesting to note that when it settles in birds, it has a more destructive effect. By eating a bird's tongue, the woodlouse begins to eat the contents of the beak and can quickly gnaw a hole in it. An injured bird loses the ability to hunt and eat, and therefore quickly dies from hunger.
Is Cymothoa exigua dangerous to humans?
There is no way to combat tongue lice, they do not disinfect or clean the water. Since they do not interfere with the fish’s feeding and do not affect life expectancy, only fishermen remove these unusual crustaceans when they are caught.
Conclusion
In 2005, news spread that a fish infected with tongue woodlice had been caught off the coast of Great Britain.
But the cinema was impressed by the story of a creature capable of eating a tongue alive. In 2012, the film “The Bay” was released.
In the photo there is a woodlouse attached to the tongue of a fish
Lifestyle of tongue woodlice
This is where the fun begins. After the tongue atrophies, the woodlice does not disappear from the mouth of the prey fish. On the contrary, she will now spend the rest of her life in the mouth of her carrier. In this case, the crustacean begins to function in place of the lost organ.
Taking on the role of a tongue, the woodlice does not interfere with the feeding of the host fish. The crustacean lets all the food that the prey eat pass by, being completely satisfied with the blood and mucus produced by the fish.
ABOUT life cycle Little is known about C. exigua. They reproduce sexually. It is likely that juveniles first attach to the fish's gills and become males. As they mature, they become females, and mating occurs on the gills of the fish. If there are two males in a pair, one of them may turn into a female after it grows to 10 millimeters in length. The female then makes her way to the fish's mouth, where she uses her front claws to attach herself to the fish's tongue.
The female lays eggs in a special pocket on her abdomen. The gestation and hatching of eggs occurs there. New individuals, after birth, immediately set off for free swimming and search on their own. own master, in whose mouth they will spend the rest of their lives.
Woodlice do not betray their host: once they have settled in the mouth of a fish, they will never move to another victim.
There are cases when two crustaceans settle and live in the mouth of one fish (usually a large one) small size. This is a rather rare occurrence, but even in this case the carrier fish does not seem to “object” to such a neighborhood.
In the photo, two crustaceans settled in the fish’s mouth
Having reached a certain age, the woodlice dies. The atrophied tongue of the fish remains forever lost and cannot be restored.
The small tongue woodlouse chooses fish that live in water bodies as its host. North America. Prefers pink snapper, hence its name. A cluster of crustaceans was discovered in California.
A photo of an unusual creature is located below.
Lifestyle
No less amazing is the reproduction of tongue-eating woodlice. A small male enters the body of the fish. Gradually he transforms into a female. Then everything happens according to a simple scenario. The male enters the fish's mouth, finds a living female there, and mating occurs.
Interesting!
If the prey is large, the male may remain living with the female in the mouth of one owner, but this rarely happens. A fisherman who catches an infected fish will remember this encounter for the rest of his life. Opening his mouth slightly to remove the hook, the fisherman will see small creatures with black round eyes. You will definitely want to eat such prey.
After mating, the female lays eggs in a special pouch on her abdomen. After their birth, the cubs immediately leave the fish’s mouth, look for a host, and develop independently away from the female.
Danger to humans
Until 2005, scientists were confident that the tongue-eating woodlice lived exclusively in California reservoirs. That changed when contaminated pink snapper was discovered in the UK. The standard question that arises is whether the crustacean is dangerous for humans, whether it eats people’s tongues.
On a note!
Experts are completely confident that it poses no danger to humans. You can eat snapper without risking anything. In most cases, the head is immediately cut off before preparing the fish; there are no eggs, larvae, or young crustaceans in other parts of the body.
The danger may lie in an unpleasant sight, which can discourage anyone from cooking and eating contaminated fish. However, woodlice can be easily removed using tweezers, forceps, or other suitable equipment.
The greatest danger is a crustacean bite. The creature can pinch your finger if you try to reach it with your hands. But even in this case, the person will not suffer much - the bite causes only minor discomfort.
Her mouth is slightly open, and if you look closely, you will notice that instead of a tongue, some creature is sitting in it and looking at you with its black eyes. This is a parasitic crustacean Cymothoa exigua- a crustacean from the order of isopods, or isopods.
Interestingly, all young isopods Cymothoa exigua grow up to be males. After penetrating the gills of the host fish, the crustacean changes sex and becomes a female (such changes occur only if another fish has not yet settled in this fish) adult female isopods). During transformation into a female, the crustacean greatly increases in size (up to 3 cm in length). The legs of the newly hatched female are lengthened for a more stable attachment in the owner’s mouth, and the eyes, on the contrary, are reduced in size, since the crustacean will no longer have to actively look for a home. After which the female detaches from the gills and moves to the base of the tongue of the host fish, where she will remain forever.
Photo © Els Van Den Borre from divephotoguide.com, taken in Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. There are many more at this link beautiful photos Clownfish with an isopod instead of a tongue.
Roman Orekhov
There are many species of Cymothoa in nature, but only Cymothoaexigua (on English language tongue-eating louse, which means tongue-eating louse) is capable of eating and replacing an organ.
Female individuals reach a length of up to 3 cm, males - up to 1.5 cm. Below in the photo you can see what these amazing animals look like.
Woodlice breed directly in the fish's mouth. Periodically, a mature male swims through the gills into the fish’s mouth and mates with the female living there. After that, eggs are laid on the female’s abdomen in a special pocket, where they are hatched. The newly born babies leave the place of birth. They go in search of a victim, in whose mouth they will spend their lives.
What is also surprising is that while the tongue woodlice is growing, it is a male. Penetrating into oral cavity snapper, she transforms into a female.
Sometimes tongue woodlice can settle in the mouths of large fish in pairs. The victim uses them as his own language, without realizing the replacement.