can sprat have sealice ?

i was at a local mark today for a bit of spinning(nothing doing)..there were the usual shoals of sprat all around,when i took a closer look i could see some of them had little orange hitchikers, even the smallest sprats in the shoal had some nearly as big as themselves on them. just wondering does anyone know what they are .....cheers ..Tony

Tony,

The first sea lice I knew about were the salmon lice that were on sea trout fresh into the river. Then I saw wee parasites on various other sea species caught in the sea, plaice, flounder, mackerel, pollack etc, at first I thought I was seeing salmon lice created by a fish farm out in the bay here, on marine species they really shouldnt have been on.

But it seems there are many types of external parasite on a whole variety of marine species, not saying I havent seen blooms of salmon louse from fish farming that have gone onto host species they maybe shouldnt be on? Pretty sure I saw salmon louse on the wrong species before...

Sorry, at this stage I wouldnt be surprised to see external parasites on any sea fish, your description of a small orange thing rings a bell, I think I might have seen tiny orange things on a sea fish in recent years.

I cant tell you one way or the other if those fish youve seen are meant to carry those parasites but I wouldnt be surprised if it was natural and ordinary ????

Cathal.

thanks cathal, its just that i have never seen parasites on sprat before,would've thought they were too small to be a host, especially the small ones where the louse is almost as big as the host