A Hydroid Parasitic on a Fish

Abstract

DURING my studies the past summer at the Newport Marine Laboratory I captured a single specimen of an osseous fish, Seriola zonata, Cuv., which exhibits a most interesting example of parasitism or possibly commensalism. Upon the outer wall of its body an extraordinary hydroid was found to have attached itself. As this mode of life is unique for a hydroid, it is thought that a mention of it, and a statement of the peculiar modifications which the hydroid has suffered, may be not without interest to others besides special students of the jelly-fishes. The hydroid is new to science, and on that account the name Hydrichthys is suggested to designate it. The hydroid will later be described and figured under the name Hydrichthys mirus, gen. et sp. nov.