Oh god, that... thing again. ._. I remember reading about that in some list of most disturbing parasites. Even worse, I don't think it was the top one.
Edit: And I just happened to have fish today, of course.
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The only other really disturbing one I can think of is Dicrocoelium dendriticum - Lancet Liver Fluke
Excerpt:
There, the fluke takes control of the ant's actions by manipulating these nerves.[6] As evening approaches and the air cools, the infected ant is drawn away from other members of the colony and upward to the top of a blade of grass. Once there, it clamps its mandibles onto the top of the blade and stays there until dawn. Afterward, it goes back to its normal activity at the ant colony. If the host ant were to be subjected to the heat of the direct sun, it would die along with the parasite. Night after night, the ant goes back to the top of a blade of grass until a grazing animal comes along and eats the blade, ingesting the ant along with it, thus putting lancet flukes back inside their host.
Bon appetit!
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Here's that list I mentioned. Probably an obvious warning, but it's got pictures of the parasites. One's quite similar to that ant one, except it lives inside a snail's eyestalk... waiting to be eaten. ._.
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Not sure this can be considered a parasite, but it's pretty nasty: the bot fly
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Agreed. Read some creepy stuff there - top weirdest surgeries, top weirdest museums, etc. lol
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Yeah I remember that picture, that's a parasite that can only live in fish. No worries humans cannot catch it. Apparently what it does is it pretty much goes inside a fishes mouth and gets rid of its' tongue. The parasite acts as the fishes new tongue and eats all the worm food and whatnot (whatever fishes eat).
I'm asian so this doesn't disturb me much o_o''... but I'm allergic to crab :P
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I just found this on Reddit, I don't even...
Cymothoa exigua (Tongue eating lous) attaches itself to a fish's tongue.
It starts to suck blood through the claws on its front legs.
As it grows, less blood can reach the tongue and it atrophies.
That's when the parasite replaces the tongue attaching his body to the muscles.
The fish uses it like a normal tongue.
Perhaps even more disturbing, apparently fish have human teeth?!
Source - Reddit
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