Bob Marley has joined an elite club of having a biological
species named after him. A small gnathiids parasitic crustacean
blood feeder that infests fish in the shallow eastern Caribbean
coral reefs, now known as Gnathia marleyi. As adults, the
parasites don’t eat. “We believe that adults subsist for two to
three weeks on the last feedings they had as juveniles and then
die, hopefully after they have reproduced,” Dr. Paul Sikkel, an
assistant professor of marine ecology and a field marine
biologist at Arkansas State University said in a statement.
Gnathiids, like the one named after Bob Marley, are the most
common external parasites found in the Caribbean coral reefs.
They are ecologically similar to land-based, blood-sucking ticks
or disease-carrying mosquitoes, the biologist said. “Gnathiids
live on the ocean floor from pole to pole, and from shallow
reefs to the abyss–and everywhere between. They are also the
most important food item for cleaner fishes and thus key to
understanding marine cleaning symbiose