9/28/2005: Tongue-eating parasite

glatt · 09-29-2005, 07:44 AM

Anyone else wonder how this symbiotic relationship first started? How does the bug get into the mouth of this one fish? How does it reproduce? And the article doesn't come out an say how the two share food. Does the fish eat the food, and the bug "shares" it by continuing to suck the blood out of the tongue stump? Or does the bug go from being a blood sucker to being a food chewer? If it's a bug, like an insect, is this its adult form, or larval? Or is it a crustacean?

So many questions...

09-29-2005, 07:44 AM	#16
glatt ™ Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Arlington, VA Posts: 27,717	Anyone else wonder how this symbiotic relationship first started? How does the bug get into the mouth of this one fish? How does it reproduce? And the article doesn't come out an say how the two share food. Does the fish eat the food, and the bug "shares" it by continuing to suck the blood out of the tongue stump? Or does the bug go from being a blood sucker to being a food chewer? If it's a bug, like an insect, is this its adult form, or larval? Or is it a crustacean? So many questions...

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