This is the biggest longnose log fish I’ve ever caught and kept alive and as if that wasn’t cool enough, it came with something extra: parasitic isopods hitching a ride! This fish was wild to watch up ...

Parasitic isopods, particularly those within the family Cymothoidae, represent a remarkable example of host‐parasite coevolution in marine environments. These crustaceans attach to or embed ...

Wildlife officials in Texas recently documented a peculiar natural horror: a fish with its tongue replaced by a parasitic crustacean known as an isopod. These isopods aren’t dangerous to humans ...

So these are the isopods that go into the mouth of the fish. They can sit on the tongue, then they destroy the tongue of the fish, and then they function as the fish's tongue.

The family of the newly discovered isopod, Cymothoidae, consists of obligate fish parasites, with 380 living species primarily found in tropical and subtropical waters.

Transcript NICO SMIT: We found a new species of tongue replacement isopod. So these are the isopods that go into the mouth of the fish.