Whale louse - Wikipedia
A whale louse is a crustacean of the family Cyamidae. Despite the name, it is not a true louse (which are insects), but rather is related to the skeleton shrimp, most species of which are found in shallower waters.
What is the function of the callosities in right whales?
Jun 29, 2017 · These small crustaceans, also called whale lice or cyamids, feed on the whales’ skin. Incapable of swimming or surviving in the open water, they travel from one whale to another by direct contact.
Life history told by a whale-louse: a possible interaction of a ...
Apr 8, 2017 · Right whales are known to host three species of cyamids: Cyamus ovalis Roussel de Vauzème, 1834, Cyamus erraticus Roussel de Vauzème, 1834, and Cyamus gracilis Roussel de Vauzème, 1834 [15–17]. Each species has a different spatial distribution on the right whale’s body [ 12 , 15 , 18 ].
Identifying Right Whales - New England Aquarium
Right whales have large patches of raised tissue on their heads, called callosities. Some people confuse the callosities with barnacles because they appear to be white. Actually, the callosity tissue is dark like the whales skin, but it is infested with light colored cyamids, or “whale lice.”.
Whale Lice - Smithsonian Ocean
This close-up photo of a right whale's head shows dozens of hitchhikers—tiny crustaceans known as whale lice, or cyamid amphipods. They live on the rough patches of skin (known as callosities) on North Atlantic right whales, eating algae that settles …
Whale Lice - ScienceDirect
Jan 1, 2009 · Whale lice (cyamids) are crustacean ectoparasites living on the skin of some species of cetaceans. Whale lice remain among some of the world’s biologically most specialized but least understood crustaceans.
Ontogenetic development and redescription of the whale louse
Jun 24, 2016 · Acute ventral processes formulas and maxilliped palp characters are some of the diagnostic features used to identify cyamids (Margolis 1955; Leung 1967). Margolis et al. used the presence of the maxilliped palp as a subgeneric character.
Whale Lice - ScienceDirect
Jan 1, 2009 · Whale lice are arthropods of the subphylum Crustacea, class Malacostraca, order Amphipoda, family Cyamidae, and genus Cyamus. They are closely related to other more commonly observed amphipods such as sand hoppers and …
(PDF) Feeding, distribution, and reproductive behavior of cyamids ...
Feb 15, 2011 · Cyamids are little-known amphipod crustaceans that live only on cetaceans. Specimens were collected from strandings of three right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) and one humpback whale (Megaptera...
Abstract: Cyamids are little-known amphipod crustaceans that live only on cetaceans. Specimens were collected from strandings of three right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) and one humpback whale ...
Cyamids collected from different regions of the callosities of right ...
Cyamids are little-known amphipod crustaceans that live only on cetaceans. Specimens were collected from strandings of three right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) and one humpback whale (Megaptera...
Right Whale - Facts and Beyond - Biology Dictionary
Nov 25, 2020 · Also known as whale lice or cyamids, these amphipods feed on the whale’s skin and travel between whales by direct contact between whales. Females normally give birth to just one calf at a time. The patterns created by these natural phenomena have long been used by researchers as a convenient tool used to tell one individual from another.
One crawled over the dolphin's back: Unusual record of the whale …
Nov 1, 2021 · Feeding, distribution, and reproductive behavior of cyamids (Crustacea: Amphipoda) living on humpback and right whales
Listening to Lice | Science - AAAS
Sep 16, 2005 · Enter a species of tiny crustaceans called cyamids--dubbed whale lice--teeming on the whales' skin, where they nibble on callouses. Because cyamids have no free-swimming stage of life and are passed from mother to calf and during other close contacts, their genetic history is linked to that of their hosts.
Feeding, distribution, and reproductive behavior of cyamids …
Cyamids are little-known amphipod crustaceans that live only on cetaceans. Specimens were collected from strandings of three right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) and one humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).
Stable-isotope and electron-microscopic evidence that cyamids ...
Here we report electron-microscopic and isotopic evidence that whale skin was ingested and assimilated by cyamids. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of cyamids and whale skin from six species of whales were compared with those of zooplankton from the regions through which the whales migrate, to infer the most likely food sources.
Stable-isotope and electron-microscopic evidence that cyamids ...
May 1, 2000 · Cyamids (Amphipoda) are the only crustaceans infecting marine vertebrates other than Wsh that are known to feed on the host's skin, but they do not seem to be able to digest the keratin in the ...
Diseases and parasites - PMC - National Center for Biotechnology ...
Sep 25, 2020 · Cyamids, commonly known as whale lice, are benign skin feeding cetacean ectoparasites (Fig. 30.2B). They range in size from 3 to 30 mm and spend their entire lives on a whale (Rowntree, 1996).
The cyamid causes certain damage to the cutaneous tissue of the host when the juvenile begins its livelihood. INTRODUCTION. The whale-louse, ectoparasite of mysticete and odontocete, has been recognized ever since Oniscus ceti of the bowhead whale recorded by Linnaeus in 1758.
Ocean warming threatens southern right whale population …
Oct 15, 2021 · Individuals are identified by their callosity patterns—patches of roughened skin covered with white cyamids or “whale lice”—that give every right whale’s head a unique and stable pattern (28).