You should not expect an identification if you do not indicate precisely: what species of fish, and which site on the fish (probably gills according to the aspect, but please check).
To get an accurate identification, you must send the isopod.
You need complet morphlogical charactres of this isopod, measurments for taxonomy
if you send specemens I can help
You can try to identify species according to DNA barcode but it depends on way of fixing your sample. BTW it's most reliable method.
I'm agree that you need to send the specimen to Taxonomist that research about isopods, in another way is very difficult to get a right identification! ... You need to think that is possible found a new specie!
It seem belonging to family Cimothoidae, but it is necessary all the morphological and enviromental data to identifie the species.
This question has been asked more than 3 months ago.
My remarks:
(1) It is surprising that Raja Kulanthaivel, who asked the question, did not participate anymore in the conversation!
(2) I suspected it was Norileca indica (Cymothoidae) but I wanted a precise identification by a real isopod specialist. So I forwarded the photograph to Prof. Jean-Paul Trilles (Montpellier, France) who confirmed the identification. So, yes, it is Norileca indica. Congratulations to those who already identified it.
(3) Going back to the profile of Raja Kulanthaivel, I noticed that he was a co-author of a paper with Trilles – why did he not ask directly to him?
More generally:
(4) Certain isopods, and perhaps a few copepods, are probably the only parasites which can be reliably identified from photographs. This will generally not work with helminths, and serious specialists will demand to see the specimens.
(5) If you post a request for identification, include all details (name of host, localization in host body, geographic locality). This helps a lot.
(6) I don’t see any “ethical problems” with an identification request. Science should be shared, and participants to ResearchGate are here for sharing. Showing a photograph for identification could be a first step for further communication and perhaps collaboration and production of a paper, and this can be very simply discussed between scientists.
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