For anyone else who is as curious as I was: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/butterflies-parasitic-wasps-finland
Uff
A foundational memory for me was a fish dissection in middle school in which we respectfully sliced the innards of one of these bad boys only to find this exact parasite inside. All the other groups just had a fish to dissect, but we also took a supercurricular lab detour to dissect that other thing too, as my classmates from other groups gathered around with real curiosity.
Frankly haven’t thought much of it in years. Would be cool to know what this is actually called.
Oh wow, the first one sounds mean. Never heard of an isopod parasite (but I’d now guess there are many more aquatic ones?). And inducing necrosis of the tongue to be the new fish’s organ, ouch :O
And what a wild ride the second story is! Thanks for sharing :)
