Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
F WORMSINFISH
ish parasites are rarely
noticed by most of us,
at least until a big one
ends up on someones
grouper sandwich. Their Unsightly But Safe
habits are often secretive
and most live their lives concealed from view;
nevertheless, if you know how and where to look, you
can find them infecting almost any wild fish. The
worlds oceans, estuaries, lakes, and rivers, are teeming
with worms, crustaceans, and other creatures that
naturally live on or in fish hosts. Fortunately, few can
harm humans.
Public Health Precautions
Typically, anglers, seafood distributors, and restaurant
staff remove parasites from fish muscle before it is
cooked, but this is more about appearance than food
safety. Most fish parasites cannot survive in the human
digestive tract, and all of the few exceptions are
rendered harmless by adequate cooking or freezing.
No match for the grill, they are killed when seafood is
heated to an internal temperature of 145F (62.8C).
You can find information about safely
selecting, handling, cooking, and freezing
seafood at the website of the US Food and
Drug Administration (www.fda.gov).
Overview of Marine Fish Parasites
By definition, a parasite lives on or in another organism
that is harmed in some way; however, while fish
parasites are abundant, they rarely cause serious
damage to wild hosts and usually act as relatively
harmless symbionts. In fact, a healthy ecosystem
supports greater parasite diversity than a degraded
Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
one and fish that host a
rich community of
parasites indicate an
intact food web. This is
because the complex life
cycles of many parasites
depend on different types of hosts (e.g. snail fish
bird) at different developmental stages (e.g. egg, larva,
adult). Some types of parasites in particular life stages
are completely dependent on a single host species, and
if that host is not present in an area, then the parasite
wont be there either. But not all are so particular, and
these may be best able to survive and spread in an
unstable environment. A fish found to be infected by
many individual parasites of only one or a few types,
can indicate a stressed ecosystem.
Adult worms rarely live in the muscle of the fish
we eat. For many internal parasites, the intestine serves
as an excellent micro-habitat for adults because it
provides them open space, plenty of nutrition, and an
easy way to transport their eggs into the outside world
along with the hosts waste. The parasites we
sometimes see in fish muscle are typically encysted
larvae waiting to move up the food chain to the predator
that will be their final host. In Florida, such larvae are
commonly seen in spotted seatrout, red grouper,
amberjack, and many other sport fish.
Types of Parasites
Tapeworms
As implied by the name, adult tapeworms (cestodes)
have ribbon-like bodies resembling a tailors measuring
tape. These are mostly made up of a long chain of
identical segment-like sections called proglottids. One
structure that is unique to each tapeworm species and
different from all the other sections is the scolex.
While it may be tempting to think of the scolex as a
head, its only function is attachment. Tapeworms
lack brains, eyes, and mouths and they absorb
nutrients through their body walls. Located at the front
end of the worm, the scolex can have suckers and
hooks to aid in clinging to host tissue. Adults are
usually unseen because they live inside the intestines
of their final host, which in the marine environment,
is usually a species of shark or ray.
The sight of larval tapeworms in fish fillets may be
the most common reason people seek information
about fish parasites and human health. Unlike the
adults, larvae can be found in their hosts muscle (Fig.
1) and may occasionally make their way onto the
dinner plate. For instance, red grouper usually host
tapeworm larvae in their muscle. These are seen as
white blobs, or when attacked by the hosts cell
defense system, may be surrounded by a visibly
obvious dark brown or black crust. An excellent
example of a species from Florida waters is a tapeworm
called Poecilancistrium caryophyllum. It parasitizes bull
sharks as an adult, but its larvae infect spotted seatrout
muscle after these game fish consume a smaller
infected host, usually a copepod (a type of small
crustacean) carrying the parasite egg. The infective
larvae in trout muscle are much smaller than might
be assumed at first sight. This is because the parasite
surrounds itself with a long, easily seen, whitish sack,
which resembles a noodle and has earned it the
common name, spaghetti worm. The spotted seatrout,
a favorite food of bull sharks, is the worms last stop
before its life cycle is complete.
Fig. 1. The coiled protective sack of this larval tapeworm in an
amberjack fillet was about a foot long once unraveled, but the
infective larval worm inside, just like the excysted larval trout
worm (inset, magnified scolex), was only a few millimeters long.
2
Flukes
The flukes (trematodes) are a diverse group of
flatworms that includes both internal and external
parasites. Although the externally attaching flukes
(monogeneans or monogenoids) are problematic in
aquaculture and aquariums and sometimes cause
fish mortalities, they tend to be difficult to see and
do not occur in fish muscle or infect humans.Dige-
neans, in contrast, are internal parasites, a few spe-
cies of which can cause serious human disease; how-
ever, digeneans that cause human illness are
typically parasites of terrestrial mammals and utilize
freshwater fish to complete their life cycles. There-
fore, the uncooked flesh of freshwater fish carrying
digenean larval stages is far riskier to human con-
sumers than that of saltwater species.
Digeneans are flat and usually have compact
bodies relative to tapeworms. Two sucker disks, one
surrounding the mouth (anterior) region and one in
the middle of the body, are unique traits of the group.
The flatworms use these suckers to cling to surfaces
and actively consume their food, which may include
tissue or the intestinal contents of their hosts.
Digeneans have complex life cycles. Generally, eggs
are released by adults living in the intestine and voided
into the water along with waste from the final fish host.
Once in the outside environment they transform into
a swimming phase and infect their first host, usually
a snail or other mollusk. In the snail, they multiply
asexually and eventually kill it by bursting through its
body wall. Once free, the larvae swim aggressively in
search of a new acceptable host (e.g. fish). If they find
one, they attach, and then bore inside where they
encyst in the tissues.
As adults and larvae, most digeneans are small (Fig.
2a) and go completely unnoticed, even by experienced
anglers and discerning diners. However, a few types are
easily spotted. One example causes a condition often
called black spot disease, a name which incorrectly
implies that the fish is sick but which accurately
describes the appearance of scattered black flecks on
the skin. In this case, the cells of the hosts immune
system produce a black pigment and surround the
individual tiny fluke larvae located under the scales, but
the worms themselves are mostly colorless. Another
example of a noticeable fluke is the wahoo worm
(Hirudinella ventricosa) (Fig. 2b) that is comparable in size
to a persons finger. It can be commonly found in the
stomachs of wahoo and other blue water sport fishes.

Fig. 2.(a) A nearly microscopic fluke from the digestive tract of
red snapper and (b) a biologist using tweezers to manipulate a
pair of giant flukes from a wahoo.
Roundworms
Many roundworms (nematode species) are not
parasitic, but others are among the most serious
human parasites, and a select few from the marine
environment can cause illness. For example, the
anisakid species that parasitize marine mammals can
survive long enough in the human body to cause the
disease anisakiasis.
Roundworms are not closely related to flatworms.
Their bodies are long, tubular, and pointed at each end.
Unable to extend and contract like the flatworms,
roundworms move by wriggling their bodies in a
serpentine motion.
Complex life cycles are the rule for parasitic
roundworms. Again, humans typically encounter
larvae, not adults, either in the muscle or body cavity
of a sport fish host. The adults often reside in the
3
Fig. 3. A heavy, mixed infection of larval nematodes (darker
coiled worms) and other parasitic worms (lighter round objects),
encysted in the connective tissue around a red drums intestine.
intestine, alongside cestodes and digeneans, where
they too can easily distribute their eggs into the
environment with the hosts waste. As with cestodes,
a small animal, often a copepod, serves as the
first host in the food chain for newly hatched
roundworm larvae.
A few types of roundworms are often noticed by
Florida anglers (Fig. 3). Larvae belonging to species of
Contracaecum are relatively large and can encyst in great
numbers in the connective tissue around the internal
organs. The large, blood-red females of the family
Philometridae are also difficult to miss, particularly
those that live in the gonads (roe sack or testes) of
many Florida sport fish species. The species that infects
red drum gonads, Philometra floridensis, can be about
three feet long when unraveled. Similar species infect
grouper and snapper and occasionally may hang like
scarlet streamers from the vent of a fish that has been
reeled up from the bottom.
Crustaceans
The crustaceans that parasitize fish, usually isopods
or copepods, are not worms at all but can have
unusual bodies specialized to suit their parasitic life
habits, and in some cases they might be mistaken for
worms. Although, they are external parasites, they
may have some parts buried inside the hosts flesh.
They have simple life cycles that do not require
multiple hosts.
Parasitic isopods (Fig. 4a-c) are recognizable as
relatives of the terrestrial woodlice (roly poly or pill
bug) which can be found hiding under logs, rocks, and
flower pots. Perhaps the most spectacular examples
are in the family Cymothoidae. Individuals become
males first before growing and transforming into larger
Fig. 4. Cymothoid isopods found (a) on the fin of a triple tail,
(b) under the gill of a pinfish and (c) in the mouth of a
ballyhoo.
females. Many species reach large sizes for a parasite
(up to about 1 long) and can be found on the skin,
fins, gills (Fig. 4b), and even inside the mouth (Fig.
4c). Mouth dwelling isopods are sometimes
misleadingly said to eat and then replace their hosts
tongues. Although their needle-sharp, hooked legs
and piercing, sucking mouthparts can severely damage
the tongue, sometimes to the point that there isnt
much of it left, this is a consequence of their true,
specialized feeding habit. Like the ticks humans can
pick up in back-country areas, at least during some
stages of development these tongue-biters puncture
their hosts skin in order to draw blood meals. Even
though mouth dwelling isopods suck blood, cause
tissue damage, and make less room for food and
oxygenated water to pass through the mouth, there
is little evidence that these parasites cause fish to
become weak or even interfere with feeding.
Nevertheless, their usefulness as prosthetic tongues
is highly questionable.
Parasitic copepods exhibit some truly bizarre
physical adaptations and may look nothing like their
non-parasitic, often planktonic, relatives. In fact, adults
may be barely recognizable as crustaceans, except to
specialists. Some bury their anchor-like heads at the
end of long stalks (Fig. 5 inset) deep inside the fish
muscle. A portion of the hind body and a pair of long
skinny egg cases are visible externally (Fig. 5), and are
easily mistaken for worms.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
100 8th Avenue SE, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 (727) 896-8626 MyFWC.com/Research
Fig. 5. A copepod with egg cases protrudes from a mullets tail,
and the bizarre, eyeless head of a similar specimen taken from
a jack crevalle (inset; magnified).
Research
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
studies fish parasites, especially those that infect sport
fish and pose a risk to the health of cultured fish at
stock enhancement facilities. This allows us to ensure
that hatchery fish are healthy and not infected with
unusual parasites that could harm wild populations.
We survey the parasites of wild fishes in part to
determine which parasite communities are normal and
to provide information to the public about the types of
parasites that are found in Florida waters. We often
discover and describe Florida parasite species that are
new to science.
Fishing license revenue and the
federal Sport Fish Restoration
Program are important sources of
funding for sport fish research. The
program is a user-pay, user-benefit
system funded by a tax on sales of
recreational fishing equipment and
motor boat fuel. The program supplies three dollars
for every one dollar provided by the state for projects
that improve fishing and boating opportunities.
December 2015