By Tim Binnall
Workers at the Galveston Island State Park in Texas recently caught a fish that was unwitting playing host to a nightmarish parasite that had devoured and replaced its tongue! The incredibly creepy find was showcased on the department's Facebook page last week. Initially joking that a Martian had been discovered at the park, they went on to explain that the oddity seen inside the animal's mouth is, in fact, "a parasitic isopod called a tongue-eating louse" and, as its name suggests, the creature has a rather unnerving claim to fame.
According to the department, the parasite subsists by entering a fish's mouth, detaching the animal's tongue, and replacing the organ with itself. The unsettling organism then lives out the rest of its days feeding on the mucus of its host. Remarkably, the parasitic relationship is not particularly harmful to the fish nor, fortunately, any humans that may wind up catching and eating the animal. Beyond merely being a monstrous organism, the department says that the tongue-eating louse is also "the only known case where a parasite functionally replaces a host’s organ."