Needless to say, I'm keeping my mouth shut when swimming in natural water ways from here on. Unfortunately I can’t get iTunes to download more than two Radiolab podcasts (see Act III which is really clever too).
Monday, April 05, 2010
Isopod
Did anyone catch the latest This American Life, #404 Enemy Camp? I was listening to the podcast this afternoon at work and Act II moved me to look up the image of an isopod parasite. It looks like a little pill bug and lives in the water. It swims into the mouth of a snapper and when in there eats the fish’s tongue but just the tongue. And then it turns around, facing front, and hunkers down where the tongue used to be. So if you open up the mouth of the fish you now see a “tongue” with eyes. The snapper and the isopod go on with a symbiotic relationship sharing the meals caught. It’s so strange and yet so familiar. Like something on the sci fi channel. But it’s really over on the nature channel. It puts you in your place. “Parasites are the most successful life form on earth.”
Needless to say, I'm keeping my mouth shut when swimming in natural water ways from here on. Unfortunately I can’t get iTunes to download more than two Radiolab podcasts (see Act III which is really clever too).
Needless to say, I'm keeping my mouth shut when swimming in natural water ways from here on. Unfortunately I can’t get iTunes to download more than two Radiolab podcasts (see Act III which is really clever too).
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2 comments:
It will be a long time before I can eat red snapper :-) Although it looks so cute siting in the mouth of the fish.
The color photo of Cymothoa exigua in the fish's mouth is copyrighted by me. Please provide proper credit with the photo. Copyright verification can be found at the following sites
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/absurd-creature-of-the-week-the-parasite-that-eats-and-replaces-a-fishs-tongue/
http://news.discovery.com/animals/tongue-eating-parasite-makes-news-again.html
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/04etta/background/isopods/media/parasitic_isopod.html
http://tolweb.org/Isopoda
http://animal.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050912/tongueeater_zoom0.html
http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/f181/tongue-eating-isopod-17585/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/12/08/lets-haunt-their-dreams-forever/
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/28/tongue-eating-fish-parasites-never-cease-to-amaze/
http://www.talksciencetome.com/treasures-the-tongue-eating-sea-louse/
Some of my copyright images were mistakenly posted by someone on Wikipedia and other sites but most have now been properly credited or removed. I thank you for your cooperation and assistance.
Thank you.
Matthew R. Gilligan, Ph.D.
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