Mystery solved: Creature found inside tuna can is a tongue-eating parasite

If you've been looking for a reason to never eat tuna again, read on: Scientists say that a British woman who opened a can of the fish and found a strange creature inside most likely uncovered a tongue-eating louse.

Zoe Butler shared all the gory details about her discovery, telling the Nottingham Post, "I opened the top of the lid and saw a purply thing, a gut sack or intestine — then I turned it round and pushed it with a fork and saw it looking back at me." Photos she took of the blob spread quickly on social media, where people speculated it was everything from a blowfish fetus to a juvenile crab to an alien.

Stuart Hine of the Natural History Museum in London saw the pictures and told The Telegraph he is fairly certain it is the detached head of a Cymothoa exigua — a parasite that enters a fish through its gills and attaches itself to its host's tongue. It doesn't really matter what it is, since it has already disgusted the world and made Butler want to avoid anything from the sea. "I want to make sure it doesn't happen to somebody else," she said. "I didn't set out to get compensation and I don't want a lifetime's supply of tuna."

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