Fun article about 10 new, unusual, and intriguing species discovered in the world's oceans last year.
Ten remarkable new marine species from 2022
This was probably the favorite of several of the very few people that actually read the article. At least it was my favorite.
Tripaphylus squidwardi Boxshall, Barton, Kirke, Zhu and Johnson, 2022
https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1594406
DESCRIPTION
This worm-shaped parasite is a type of copepod. Copepods are small shrimp like crustaceans that are usually about the size and shape of a sesame seed, but this copepod has evolved a very different shape better suited for its bizarre parasitic lifestyle.
The copepod is named after the Spongebob character Squidward, in reference to its big round head that resembles Squidward’s. It has an elongate body about 2.5 cm in length and it uses its bulbous head to remain firmly embedded in its host, the Australian blackspot shark Carcharhinus coatesi. As a tiny larval stage, this parasite finds a shark and burrows its head into the shark’s throat near the gills and then transforms into an elongate body that remains dangling in the throat of the shark like a parasitic uvula (the dangling structure found in the back of your mouth at the top of your throat). With its head embedded and most of its body hanging free in the throat, it releases its eggs, presumably to exit via the gills rather than the long way out.
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