A Public Service Announcement From Ectomo

If you were planning on having intimate relations with a crustacean in the near future Ectomo would like to offer up this tale of warning. This is an anomuran crab. Quite a looker to be sure. Any marine fetishist would love to put this notch in their bedpost, but look closer. Attached to this exquisite beauty is a parasite known as a rhizocephalan. This particular rhizocephalan is named Briarosaccus callosus and it is nature’s cock-block.

Briarosaccus callosus attaches itself to the reproductive organs of its host, male or female, and hijacks it. The rhizocephalan, which means “root head”, uses the host’s reproductive system to nourish the eggs it stores in the externa, which is the pink sack seen in the photos. This all sounds awful surely, but Briarosaccus callosus takes it a step or two further, just for good measure. Since moulting -which crabs usually do after reproducing- would cause the parasite to be detached, it tricks the crab into never doing so again and since it needs the reproductive organs for its own, unholy, purposes it makes sure that the crab never has sex again either.

So next time you’re at home, having invited that slutty crab you met at the bar home for some drinks remember this: there is always the possibility that you may wake up in the morning a parasite attached to your genitals, sending tendrils into your body, rendering the possibility of any further sexual encounters nothing but a distant memory.

LOLRhizocephalans: Plotting to Take Over the World [Deep Sea News] : Neatorama