ATLA AU Book One: Water (6/?)

Another one

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONAAAAA!!

Happy Birthday, Mona!

Neat 🙂

Mythology Discussion

A very ambitious piece for me.

Their designs still needs altering, but overall I'm very happy with this!

(Also, it’s unseen but Grimsley does have a dorsal fin)

I might make more things for this AU in the future, provided inspiration comes.

(Also, zoom in on Beheeyem and Sharpedo for a cute little part of this drawing. It's silly, but I like it.)

Happy Birthday, Freminet!

I—I've wanted to bring you here for quite some time now.

Surrounded by glowing Tidalga, flashing shoals of fish, and beams of sunlight shining through the surface... It's like being inside a fairytale.

Ah... If you keep staring at me like that, I'll get so nervous that I won't know what to say...

...Would you be able to look away for a moment while I put on my diving helmet? Sorry, thank you...

Went for a small journey when I was eleven twelve but wasn't until recently that I was allowed to go further.

if you've gone on one then add in the tags

It's so funny 😂

Today I caught three catfish, a perch, and a pickerel.

The second catfish I caught was an absolute unit, it was almost longer then my arm.

leviathan

October 31st, 2023

Happy Halloween!

Tongue-eating Louse (Cymothoa exigua)

Distribution: Fairly widespread; found in the eastern Pacific, from the gulf of California down to the gulf of Guayaquil, Ecuador, as well as parts of the Atlantic; inhabits waters from 2 to 60 metres in depth.

Habitat: Inhabits waters from 2 to 60 metres in depth; adults live on or in the bodies of fish; juveniles swim freely in the water column.

Diet: Parasitic; feeds off its host's blood and mucus; hosts include snappers, grunts, drums and grunions.

Description: The tongue-eating louse is an ectoparasitic isopod. A juvenile louse swims in the water column until it encounters a suitable host and attaches itself to its gills—soon after this maturing into a male. As it grows, the male eventually becomes female and migrates through the gills to its host's mouth, where it will use a pair of sharp claws to sever the blood vessels leading to its tongue. Once the tongue falls off due to necrosis, the louse will attach itself to the tongue stub and functionally "become" the fish's tongue. Surprisingly, this actually causes little damage to the fish, though hosts carrying many parasites are often underweight.

Once a host dies, the tongue-eating louse will eventually detach itself from its tongue stub, but will remain clinging to the head or body of its dead host. This species is completely harmless to humans, though can occasionally be found in the mouth of commercial fish.

(Images by Andy Heyward and Elkin Fricke)