Comments on: Tongue Eating Fish Parasite Photos

By: Fishing Fury - A fishing blog with attitude! » Blog Archive » BBQ’d Tongue Eating Fish Parasite!

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:53:00 +0000

[...] better. That being said, these parasites do no real damage to fish they inhabit. And according to reliable sources, eating fish containing the parasite is perfectly [...]

By: David D

David D — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:20:41 +0000

I’ve just cooked one of these in the UK from imported Bass. Gutted and cleaned 4 Bass and started cooking, on the BBQ. Quite a surprise when one of these crawled out of the mouth. I have some digital pictures if you’re interested. Contact me at ddawks@aol.com

By: chuck v

chuck v — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 01:20:47 +0000

I found one of these on a catfish i hooked on 3/24/9 in upper tampa bay.it was not on the tounge but hooked on the bottom near the tail and had left aneaten area abount the size of a quarter.took me while to find this site.but the picture sure looks like what i saw

By: Kyushu Trip 3 « the Compleat Tsuribito

Kyushu Trip 3 « the Compleat Tsuribito — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 07:22:33 +0000

[...] not unusual to find a madai or other fish harbouring one of these Rhexanella parasites, I have never found more than one infecting the same animal (actually there were three, but I [...]

By: jolene V

jolene V — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:42:09 +0000

I wonder if these parasites affect lakes and rivers too?? Sea lamprey have already been found in the great lakes in MN!! Also some eel like fish has been found in a few clams here in the great lakes as well.This really grosses me out!

By: Mossgeek

Mossgeek — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:28:51 +0000

heres another pic for you

By: Jonathon Marshall

Jonathon Marshall — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 15:31:03 +0000

Alex you are totally correct. Personally I think the last photo is the best and shows off the construction of the legs and exactly how they manage to hook themselves in to the fishes mouth and never let go.

I don’t recall ever seeing close-up photos of their legs in any of the research I did.

By: Alex M. Metcalf

Alex M. Metcalf — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 08:36:42 +0000

These are some of the best pictures of this parasite that I have seen.
Thank you for taking and uploading these.
And you’re right the parasite has no negative effect on the fish other than that of removing and replacing the fish’s tongue. The fish can actually use the parasite like it’s original tongue to manipulate food.
If you upload any more pictures of this parasite, please let me know, if possible.