The Cellar - 9/28/2005: Tongue-eating parasite

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- - 9/28/2005: Tongue-eating parasite (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=9242)

Anyone else wonder how this symbiotic relationship first started? How does the bug get into the mouth of this one fish? How does it reproduce? And the article doesn't come out an say how the two share food. Does the fish eat the food, and the bug "shares" it by continuing to suck the blood out of the tongue stump? Or does the bug go from being a blood sucker to being a food chewer? If it's a bug, like an insect, is this its adult form, or larval? Or is it a crustacean?

So many questions...

I imagine it started something like this:

http://users.iconz.co.nz/apeacock/frogbrd4.gif

Successful symbiotic relationships involve a benefit for both parties. I can see the upside for the tongue biter, but for the other fish? I'm not so sure.

Just checked. My intuition was not correct.

Quote:

Definition:
Symbiosis is a close ecological relationship between the individuals of two (or more) different species. Sometimes a symbiotic relationship benefits both species, sometimes one species benefits at the other's expense, and in other cases neither species benefits.

Ecologists use a different term for each type of symbiotic relationship:

Mutualism
-- both species benefit
Commensalism
-- one species benefits, the other is unaffected
Parasitism
-- one species benefits, the other is harmed
Competition
-- neither species benefits
Neutralism
-- both species are unaffected

Hmm. Learn something every day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt

It came in through the bathroom window......I mean the gills. A little more info here. :)

Cool! Thanks, Bruce.