Am I understanding that article right? Not only is the female a parasite on a different crustacean and loses all its libs and organs until it is just a sac with tendrils snaking through its host; but the male also attaches to the female while it’s in that sac state, and also loses all its limbs and organs until it is just a set of gonads? That’s the weirdest fucking lifecycle I’ve ever heard of.
The females are parasites who inject themselves into a host and take over their bodies through a network of filaments, while the males are hyperparasites who inject themselves into a settled female and cease to exist as independent organisms through the degeneration of all tissues except the ones responsible for spermatogenesis.
Same!
Even barnacles get worse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizocephala
Am I understanding that article right? Not only is the female a parasite on a different crustacean and loses all its libs and organs until it is just a sac with tendrils snaking through its host; but the male also attaches to the female while it’s in that sac state, and also loses all its limbs and organs until it is just a set of gonads? That’s the weirdest fucking lifecycle I’ve ever heard of.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit
The immobile crustacean is a parasite to the mobile crustacean!
Now I need to see an immobile plant that is a parasite to a mobile plant. Triffids excluded.
Sadly I believe there are none
Oh hey, another link i have mixed feeling about having ever clicked.
Metal AF
Hey babe, new Last of Us dropped.
Life never stops amazing me, even if some things come out of the mind of a author of b-horror movie scripts.