Goby with two parasites on his head

On yesterdays Housereef dive, we found this little Goby (Amblygobius decussatus). You could tell straight away that something was not quite right with him but only on the second look it became obvious: He has two big parasites on his head – one on each cheek. As bad as this is for the little goby – it looked really cool. Specially with the colours stripes of the Crosshatch Goby going right over the parasites.
Parasites on Gobies (and other fish) are very common in Lembeh and this is the best place to observe various species of them. Isopods, Copepods, Tongue Parasites … they are all easy to find here. Usually the fish that has for example a tongue parasite will eventually die because of the parasite. But this one suffering from an isopod was still swimming and behaving normal and did not seem to suffer a lot. He kept feeding and trying to escape the camera like all gobies do. So i think, he will probably still have some more time to live. So let’s not feel too sorry for the little Goby – parasites also need to eat something 😉