One of the most terrifying creatures in the ocean could also be one of the smallest – as a photo reveals a tiny tongue-eating parasite living inside this poor clownfish's mouth.
The tongue eating parasite, or Cymothoa exigua, wait for a fish to swim passed before latching onto their host through the fishes gills after shooting up from the ocean floor.
The male crustacean, which are hermaphrodites meaning they all eventually turn into females, attach themselves to the hosts tongue using their back legs and claws to start slowly draining blood.
The tongue of the host parasite, in this case the poor clownfish, will wither away and fall off forcing the fish to use the parasite as a replacement to survive.
The terrifying little critter can grow up to an inch in length and to top off the blood curling process the parasites often reproduce in the mouth of the host to survive.
The disturbing parasite seems like a creature from an Alien movie, but they don't actually kill the host fish.
More and more of the tongue-eating parasite species' are found and slowly discovered across the Indian and Pacific Ocean.
Law professor Lars Michaelis, 44, snapped the photos off the coast of North Sulawesi, Indonesia.