Fact Friday
The tongue-eating louse lives up to its name, or at least the females do. She enters a fish’s body through the gills and cuts off the circulation to the fish’s tongue. When the tongue falls off, she becomes the fish’s new tongue, feeding on the fish’s blood and/or mucus.
Cymothoa exigua By Marco Vinci [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0] 1 September 2013 via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cymothoa_exigua_parassita_Lithognathus_mormyrus.JPG.
January 24, 2025
Surgeonfish
Why is it called a surgeonfish? Surgeonfish get their name from the pair of spines that are as sharp as a scalpel. The spines are usually tucked into a groove in their tail, but if you get too close – watch out!
Photo Credit: Ken Marks
