Wahoo intestinal parasites
Submitted by ranmar850 on Tue, 2017-08-01 19:38
This will probably be one for Glenn, and I didn't have a camera handy. When cleaning a large wahoo recently, I did my usual examination of the gut contents for an idea of what he was feeding on. The stomach was empty, apart from two rather disgusting looking purple/red blobs which were attached to the inner stomach lining. They were able to be pulled away without any apparent damage, and apeared to have a mouth on the end which was attached. They resembled nothing so much as a very fat leech, attached inside the stomach. Elongated neck, overall length maybe 25mm, with a fat end diameter of around 18mm. Fish was otherwise in perfect health, gave a good fight and flesh was perfect.
Anyone else seen these?
Habanero
Posts: 225
Date Joined: 19/06/12
Yep
I have never cleaned a wahoo when they were not present , cleaned a lot of wahoo , never a singular , always in pairs. live and crawl for a while after removing from stomach . the Fijians have a myth/fable about them.
Glenn Moore
Posts: 228
Date Joined: 13/02/12
sounds like a worm
Not my area at all, but it sounds like a worm of some sort. I don't think that any marine leeches live in the intestines, but I really don't know. Could be a Spiny-headed worm? There is a specialist marine parasite group operating out of James Cook Uni - might be worth contacting them www.marineparasites.com
Glenn Moore
Curator of Fishes
Western Australian Museum
twitter @WestOzFish