This is a male hairy frogfish (Antennarius striatus) exhibiting the characteristic lump on his head and abdomen resulting from infection by the parasitic copepod Sarcotaces pacificus. A maggot-shaped female resides inside the lump, where she lays thousands of eggs. The eggs hatch within the lump and pass through five nauplius development stages before reaching their first copepodid stage, at which point the juvenile parasites are able to infect new hosts.
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