![\"tongue-eating-parasite.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.mattcastille.com\/me\/wp-content\/upload\/2009\/09\/tongue-eating-parasite.jpg\")
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\nA rare parasite which burrows into host fish before eating and replacing their tongues with itself has been found off the Jersey coast.<\/p>\n
Fishermen near the Minquiers – islands under the jurisdiction of Jersey – found the isopod, a type of louse, inside a weaver fish.<\/p>\n
Marine researcher Paul Chambers, from the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Jersiaise, was one of the fishing party and identified the find.<\/p>\n
He said he was surprised to find the isopod away from the Mediterranean sea.<\/p>\n
Isopods are normally about 2cm (1in) long and live in fish, surviving on the animal’s blood, in warm waters.<\/p>\n
‘Quite vicious’<\/p>\n
Mr Chambers told: “When we emptied the fish bag out there at the bottom was this incredibly ugly looking isopod.<\/p>\n
“Really quite large, really quite hideous – if you turn it over its got dozens of these really sharp, nasty claws underneath and I thought ‘that’s a bit of a nasty beast’.<\/p>\n
“I struggled for weeks to find an identification for this thing until, quite by chance I stumbled across something that looked similar in a Victorian journal.<\/p>\n
“Apparently there’s not too much ill effect to the fish itself except it’s lost its tongue.”<\/p>\n
Experts at the University of Southampton confirmed that the creature was an isopod and that there had been several sightings of them in Cornwall in 1996.<\/p>\n
Mr Chambers added: “It doesn’t affect humans other than if you do actually come across a live one and try and pick it up – they are quite vicious, they will deliver a good nip.”<\/p>\n