Few parasites have a life story as unsettling as the tongue-eating louse. This small marine crustacean enters a fish through the gills, makes its way to the mouth, and destroys the fish’s tongue, then ...

Meet the tongue-eating isopod, Cymothoa exigua. This marine parasite feasts on a fish's tongue and then becomes its tongue. You'll never eat seafood again. National Corporate funding for NOVA is ...

This spinecheek anemonefish has an unwelcome resident living inside its mouth—the tongue-eating louse, Cymothoa exigua. A parasitic crustacean, the blood-sucking isopod enters its host’s buccal cavity ...

Somewhere in the warm coastal waters between the Gulf of California and Ecuador, a snapper is swimming with a crustacean in its mouth where its tongue used to be. The animal is Cymothoa exigua, an ...