Unidentified Hitchhiker

thetallestwave · May 27, 2020

Hello everyone! This is my first post here on Reef2Reef, not exactly what I would’ve preferred to post but here it is. I saw this sucker hitchhiking on one of my lawnmower blennies one day so I decided to try a 2 minute freshwater dip to see if that would take care of the issue. Not being effective and placing the fish back into the tank with that still on him not being an option, I decided to take matters into my own hands with some surgery. I took some tweezers and, with quite some force, was able to remove this guy from the fish and put him back into the tank with no issues. I’ve never seen one of these before, and when I presented it to my LFS they didn’t know either, shocker. I’m just relieved to have it off my Blenny, as I’m sure he is too. Any identification on this?

TriggerFinger · May 27, 2020

Is the black part fish tissue attached to a tan worm?

KJ · May 28, 2020

@Big G

thetallestwave · May 28, 2020

Not fish tissue; the whole thing was latched onto his dorsal fin with that small hook seen on the opposite end of the “tail”. It didn’t squish with blood either when I applied pressure to it. This thing was a tough sucker to get off.