Mouth parasite and anemone fish…

Yesterday, an instructor here at KBR in Lembeh showed me one of her photos of an anemonefish with a parasite in its mouth.  I managed to shoot this photo today after Dettman, our guide, found a spinecheek anemonefish with a similar parasite.  Any clues as to what it is exactly?

Edit – 13/5.  The parasite is Cymothoa sp. most probably, a ‘Buccal cavity parasite’ that eats away the tongue of its host, thus providing itself with a suitable space to live and grow, and some food into the bargain!  Unusual lifestyle to say the least…

Thanks to LeaMoser on Flickr for the info – take a look at her image of a similarly infected anemonefish here.

Learn more about parasitism here.

Related posts:

1. Picture of the day – 11/5
2. Picture of the day…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 6:42 am. It is filed under Photography and tagged with Diving, Indonesia, SE Asia, Sulawesi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.