Summary of "This parasite eats a fish's tongue---and takes it's place" by Matt Simon
Simon reported that, "A Cymothoa exigua tongue-eating isopod that has consumed and replaced the tongue of a snapper..." This is a parasitic creature that has evolved in a rare way to easily survive in the world. These isopods have targeted the rose snapper fish and "infiltrate its gills and latch[es] onto its tongue". It proceeds to suck the blood and life out of the snapper's tongue and replaces the tongue with her own body making her body a fully functioning tongue. This allows her to easily survive and have her babies survive with her until they are ready to be released. Marine biologists hypothesize that the female then waits until her host (the snapper) is in a school of fish, then lets her babies go out of the host snapper to find their own. In the school they will have lots of targets. This rare form of parasites one that has raised a lot of questions on how an isopod has evolved to take over a fish and make it sacrifice itself for the isopod's life (Simon, 2014).
This article was one that really boggled my mind for many reasons. First of all, I didn't know that isopods could live in water. Second, I am very curious on how an isopod would evolve in a way that they survived in another animal's mouth. Third, this type of survival is abnormal because other creatures that make another animal its host don't totally take it over like the Cymothoa exigua does. It is such a convenient way for the isopod to survive. They have free food, a safe place, and a free place to stay. They go into the rose snapper through the fish's gills, mates with a male isopod in the mouth of the host fish, then latches onto the fish's tongue and sucks everything out of the tongue until only a stub is left, makes her body into a fully functioning tongue, and lives in the fish's mouth until her babies are ready to be released out of the pouch and into the water. She then goes out of the fish's mouth herself leaving a fish without a tongue, which surely cannot survive. Both the isopod and the fish eventually die, making the Cymothoa exigua a true parasite. WOW! It also makes me wonder, what it took to make the isopod start evolving into this kind of a creature. If only humans could find such an easy way to live too!
Words Cited
Absurd creature of the week: this parasite eats a fish’s tongue —
and takes its place. (2013, November 22). Retrieved from Wired website:
http://www.wired.com/2013/11/
absurd-creature-of-the-week-the-parasite-that-eats-and-replaces-a-fishs-tongue/
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