334

submitted 1 week ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 1 week ago

A foundational memory for me was a fish dissection in middle school in which we respectfully sliced the innards of one of these bad boys only to find this exact parasite inside. All the other groups just had a fish to dissect, but we also took a supercurricular lab detour to dissect that other thing too, as my classmates from other groups gathered around with real curiosity.

Frankly haven’t thought much of it in years. Would be cool to know what this is actually called.

[-] spinne@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 week ago

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!