World Wide Crazy News!

A Korean woman eating a cooked squid, including internal organs, felt a “pricking” pain in her mouth and was rushed to the hospital. The squid's live “spermatophores” (basically, semen) were found in her tongue, cheek, and gums.

Danna Staff of Science 2.0 reports:

"These foreign bodies were subsequently identified as squid spermatophores, which I would like to point out are not "organisms" in any way. [...] Spermatophores don't have legs. Or eyes. Or exoskeletons. But that's not to say they aren't complex structures. (That's why squid researchers tend to translate "spermatophore" as sperm package rather than sperm bag.) Each spermatophore includes an ejaculatory apparatus, which can expel the sperm mass quite forcefully, and a cement body for attachment. Of course, neither of those is a needle or a knife--the sort of thing you'd expect to need for actual implantation (into either a female squid or a human mouth). I've written a bit about this mystery before. As it turns out, no one is quite sure how spermatophores implant themselves into skin."

LINK: Penetration of the oral mucosa by parasite-like sperm bags of squid: a case report in a Korean woman.

From the Journal of Parasitology.

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Via: science20.com