Marine life  /  Isopods & parasitic crustaceans
5 of 1316 species
Group

Isopods & parasitic crustaceans

The crustaceans that live on another animal at its expense. Small, easy to miss, and usually noticed as a lump on a fish rather than as an animal in their own right.

Species
5
Depth
1–30 m
Rarity range
3 stars of 5, a good week should turn one upto 4 stars of 5, two or three a season
Night only
1
Can hurt a diver
None
Destinations
5

The cymothoid isopods attach to a fish and stay. The tongue-biter enters through the gills, attaches in the mouth and takes the place of the tongue; Anilocra rides on the flank or the head of a cardinalfish or a snapper and is often the first thing seen in a photograph of one. The gnathiid isopods feed only as juveniles, drop off, and are the main thing cleaner shrimps and cleaner wrasses are removing.

The bopyrid isopods live inside a shrimp's gill chamber and show as a bulge on one side of the head. The parasitic barnacle is stranger again: it grows through a crab's body as a network of threads and shows only as a sac under the abdomen, and an infected crab stops moulting and tends the sac as if it were its own eggs.

5 species

Photographed first, then commonest

5 written up, none photographed yet

Every one has a page. They are shown as a list rather than as pictures because nothing has been photographed or logged for them yet, and a species with nothing behind it should not sit in front of one that has.

Where they are recorded

How many of the 5 carry a record at each destination. A species usually carries several, so these do not add up to 5.

Lembeh Strait 5 Anilao 5 Ambon 5 Dauin & Dumaguete 5 Bali 3

The other groups

Anemonefish 11 Angelfish 25 Batfish 3 Blennies 26 Butterflyfish 35 Cardinalfish 13 Damselfish 32 Dottybacks 5 Dragonets 5 Eels & garden eels 18 Flatfish 8 Frogfish & anglers 26 Goatfish 8 Gobies & dartfish 29 Groupers & anthias 42 Hawkfish 5 Jacks & open-water fish 29 Jawfish 4 Lizardfish & flatheads 10 Morays 26 Morwongs & trumpeters 4 Parrotfish 16 Pufferfish & boxfish 23 Rabbitfish 5 Scorpionfish & lionfish 47 Seahorses & pipefish 53 Shrimpgobies 17 Snappers, breams & sweetlips 39 Squirrelfish & soldierfish 9 Surgeonfish & unicornfish 26 Triggerfish & filefish 25 Trumpetfish & cornetfish 4 Wrasses 56 Other fish 46 Sharks & rays 63 Turtles, sea snakes & crocodiles 11 Marine mammals & birds 10 Cephalopods 36 Nudibranchs & sea slugs 137 Sea snails & shells 26 Shrimps 38 Mantis shrimps 5 Crabs 45 Hermit crabs 10 Lobsters & squat lobsters 13 Amphipods 2 Sea stars 18 Brittle stars & basket stars 7 Feather stars 2 Sea urchins 23 Sea cucumbers 12 Worms 11 Flatworms 3 Jellyfish & stinging drifters 10 Anemones & zoanthids 12 Corals & sponges 29 Sea squirts 4 Blackwater & plankton 52 Other invertebrates 2

All 1316 species in one index, with filters for destination, rarity and hazard.

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