#rhizocephala

Who's ready to be a mother-- whether you like it or not? Rhizocephalan barnacles are famous for their habit of parasitizing crabs, and turning them into expecting mothers, regardless of their original sex. As larvae, female barnacles enter the crab's body by burrowing into the shell. As they grow, they construct large sacs under the crab's abdomen which are filled with eggs for free-swimming males to fertilize. Thanks to a network of filaments built inside her host's body, the barnacle forces the crab to care for and defend the sac as though it were their own until the eggs hatch.

it is time for crab on tumblr, but not time for crab in my life. yet.

Tumblr's April Fool's crab post button is really really funny given that my icon is of a rhizocephalan--that is, a parasitic barnacle that grows into a branching lump inside a crab and alters its behavior so it will tend the rhizocephalan's eggs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizocephala

Behold Rhizocephala (a relative of Sacculina, the blob parasitizing a crab in my icon), a parasitic barnacle who’s a lump on the outside and a branching network wrapped around her host’s nervous system on the inside, as this photo kindly shows!