A 5-year-old girl is playing in a river when she discovers then catches a large fish with her bare hands!!

Cymothoa exigua is a parasitic crustacean of the family Cymothoidae. It tends to be 3 to 4 cm long.

This parasite attaches itself at the base of the spotted rose snapper’s (Lutjanus guttatus) tongue, entering the fish’s mouth through its gills. It then proceeds to extract blood through the claws on its front three pairs of legs.

As the parasite grows, less and less blood reaches the tongue, and eventually the organ atrophies from lack of blood. The parasite then replaces the fish’s tongue by attaching its own body to the muscles of the tongue stub. The fish is able to use the parasite just like a normal tongue.

It appears that the parasite does not cause any other damage to the host fish. Once C. exigua replaces the tongue, some feed on the host’s blood and many others feed on fish mucus. They do not eat scraps of the fish’s food.

This is the only known case of a parasite functionally replacing a host organ.

An NHK camera crew has captured a flying fish traveling through the air for 45 seconds, in what could be a new world record.

The footage was taken on Monday, from a ferry near Kuchino-erabu island in Kagoshima prefecture, southwestern Japan.

The fish flew alongside a ferry that was traveling at roughly 30 kilometers per hour. The fish was able to continue flying by occasionally beating the surface of the water with its tail-fin when its flight height became low.

An expert says the flight time beats the previous record of 42 seconds reported by an American researcher in the 1920s. He says the flight of 45 seconds must be close to the fish’s biological limit, as brachial respiration is impossible while flying in air.

Weightliftng is dangerous …if you’re a fish. Anyway, this guy wants to show us how tough he is, especially when he’s crying for his mummy!