|
So I did some reading.
Turns out anchor worms are not true worms but crustaceons or more technically copepods. There are something like 13000 described species many more that have not been classified and about half of the known ones are parasitic. Copepods are specific to their environment so unlike worms you can't get a copepod infestation by eating them in fish. Think of them like extra protean: like fish with internal shrimp, or added mini lobsters in their flesh.
Still could not find anything on the tar. Seems to be a really rare phenomena.
There are so many species of Copepods out there it looks like it's almost impossible to find the life cycle of the exact version I posted above.
That said I now have a theory. If I had to guess I'd say if the tar does come from the anchor worms it's probably waste like copepod crap that normally is absorbed by the fish itself.
Many copepods don't use their host for food but for a good ride to food. I know with sharks they actually feed on small shit that ends up in the water when the sharks feed.
I'd say the copepods in this case are filter feeders kind of like barnacles or mussels. Over time they sweep in various food from the water surrounding the fish. Due to weird adaption of their anatomy when they shit the shit goes into the fish itself. I know that sounds weird, like you would think it's ass end would be outside the fish, but in strictly evolutionary terms there is no need for the copepod to evolve that way, so even though it's gills are in this case external to the fish out of necessity , it's waste or anal cavity is probably located in it's abdominal sections like with most copepods, and in this case it's probably inside the fish.
So the copepod most likely shits right into the fishes flesh, but that is usually not an issue since the amount is tiny and the fishes biology over time naturally just eliminates this through absorption and the excretion.
The deal is any inorganic substance like oil can't be absorbed by the fish.
So over time as the copepod feeds by taking in various organic and inorganic particles out of the surrounding water, it then shits what it can't digest into the flesh of the fishes flesh.
The fish can absorb and then eliminate any organic stuff in that waste however any non organic particles taken in by the copepod that get passed into the fish through the waste can not be eliminated.
The inorganic stuff gets caught in the fishes flesh and over time accumulates creating essentially a inorganic oily waste abscess. The fish creates a structure, a abscess wall, or capsule around this, formed by the fishes adjacent healthy cells in an attempt to keep the inorganic material from infecting neighboring structures. So you essentually end up with little tar balls abscesses in the fish.
The tar I found in my fish looked smelled and even acted like real tar. It even melted and burnt when heated with a lighter. That to me suggest it's real tar. The fact you found similar tar suggests it was not a single event isolated to the fishes injury but a biological process, and if that is true the above bio/waste-accumulation scenario is about the only way I can figure out how it could of possibly gotten in there.
The anchor worms in my fish were huge. about as big around as a pencil and maybe six to eight inches long. My take is theyay had been in there for a long long time. So even though the amount of inorganic oily crap, they may have ingested on a daily basis was extremely small, over the years since it had nowhere to it could of built up into sizable tar balls I found in the fish.
So eating the fish...Hhhhhmmmmm!!! Well if I had to guess: Though the copepods themselves present no danger the tar is a bunch of inorganic possibly toxic waste built up over time. That said the whole point of an abscess is to keep such crap isolated and out of the rest of the tissue. So probably the rest of the flesh is clean and edible but certainy would not cook or eat the tar. It's likely a tiny waste landmine or poison pill stuck in the rest of the clean healthy fish flesh, and it could likely be distributed into the rest of the meat by simply cooking it.
Like I said interesting stuff. Too bad one of us did not save the meat for analysis.
Jim
|