Seems like a similar species is common where I am.
Comment on Nightmare fuel
spinne@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks agoen.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua
This is an example of the type of tongue-replacing creature you found, not necessarily the same species.
So that’s a fun twofer: you know a possible name for what you saw, and you know that a parasite replacing a host’s organ is one of nature’s fun survival strategies!
ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Horrifying. Thanks for the link, although to be honest I probably could have googled “fish tongue parasite isopod” at some point in the past decade+.
Interesting that the Wikipedia page has photos that wouldn’t have rang the bell for me, the one I remember was exactly like the one in the post.