What are the parasites that live on fish tongues?

Parasites are bugs that are well known to everyone. Both adults and children may have parasites in their bodies, but they are more common in children. People who have parasites in their stomachs usually take anthelmintics. Most parasites are white crawling worms. Parasites usually hide in raw food, so make sure to cook it thoroughly before eating. If humans have parasites, do animals have them too? The answer is yes. Animals also have parasites in their bodies. For example, fish have parasites on their tongues. Let’s take a look at what the parasites on fish tongues are!

1. What are fish tongue parasites?

The fish monster that parasitizes on the fish's tongue is a fish monster that parasitizes the body of freshwater fish. It parasitizes in the chest cavity of carp and crucian carp, and in the larval stage it penetrates the fish body from the base of the host's pectoral fins into the body cavity. After being stimulated by the fish monster, the host secretes a bag-shaped transparent membrane at the front end of the body cavity to separate the worm from the body cavity. There is a male and a female in the bag, living there for a long time. The fish monster is positioned inside the bag with its head facing inwards and its tail facing outwards. The tail section is close to the sac hole to facilitate breathing. After growing up, due to its larger body size, it can no longer drill out of the body through the original hole.

2. Overview of parasites

About 3-4 cm long. They enter the body of perch and snapper through the gills and attach themselves to the base of the tongue. Their front paws draw blood from their tongues, causing them to shrink. They attach to the muscles of the tongue and take their place. Fish can still use the lice like a normal tongue. The lice do not appear to cause any other damage to the fish's body. When the lice replace the tongue, they feed on the fish's blood on the one hand and suck the fish's mucus on the other. This is the only known form of parasitism that completely replaces the host's organs.

It is currently believed that the fish lice are not harmful to humans. The fish monster's body is divided into three parts: head, chest and abdomen. The head is small and triangular, deeply sunken in the chest, with two abdominal eyes on both sides of the back. The thorax consists of 7 segments, which are broad and bulging, and the abdomen has 6 segments. The male insect is oval in shape, with a bilaterally symmetrical body, 11 to 16 mm long and 6 to 8 mm wide. The body is narrower than that of the female and is generally bilaterally symmetrical. Maxillopods narrower and longer than those of females. The second thoracic limb is a rod-shaped protrusion and serves as a copulatory organ. The female insect is more than 1 times larger than the male insect, is cheese-colored, often twisted to the left or right, and when pregnant with eggs, it becomes a bulky ball.