I was fishing by seawall galveston I used a crab as bait while later i hooked the fish brought at shore I was going to take of the hook and release it I saw a its tongue replace by a white bug and there were 2 more close to its gills i been fishing a long time and never seen one.At the time i dint have my phone so I dint take a pic and are the tongue eating louse native to here

Huh?

Seen it many times. They sometimes attach right near the tail or near the gills. I've seen a few in the mouth as well. No big deal just pull them off.

The tongue eating louse is not native to TX, but has reached our gulf coast. I have not yet heard of one being found on a freshwater fish as of yet. But I am only sure it is a matter of time before one makes it's way up a river channel.

Anyone found this parasitei on a freshwater fish?

Those things just give me the chills. Nasty little critters.

Pic?

I dint have my phone

Google it....THATS NASTY !!!!

Well we need to do something about it cuse the bp oils spill harmed our gulf coast and there is still oil under the sand in some places and now a non native crustacean sucking the blood out of fish

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua

Found this on Wikipedia.

Freakishly weird, but apparently there's no reports on it being harmful to humans other than they can bite if picked up with your hand.

Even weirder, the fish host uses the parasite as a tongue....

I am not worry about the harm it can cause to us i am more worried about the harm it can fish and what damage it could have on fish populations.

my son found some on a gaftop's tail and body while fishing at smith point this weekend.

If you dont know how tongue eating louse looks like I will put a link http://www.lesfruitsdemer.org/2009/09/isopod-got-your-tongue/

From what I read around, Isopods are used by scientists as an indicator of water quality. Seems they can't handle pollution very well. Could it be that we are seeing more of them because the Gulf is getting cleaner?