The louse and the fish's tongue

The amazing and strange tongue-eating louse replacing a fish's tongue! Because isopods, the subject of a new featured article, are both awesome and really damn weird!

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 1 to 7 September 2014. Anything in quotation marks is taken from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.

Featured articles

Five featured articles were promoted this week.

Henry Burrell (admiral) (nominated by Ian Rose) An Australian admiral, Burrell entered the navy at the tail end of the First World War. He rose through the ranks, commanding a destroyer in the Second World War, before captaining the navy's most important vessels for several years after the war. After being promoted to a flag officer, Burrell was in charge of several major acquisitions, including new submarines and guided-missile destroyers. He retired in 1962, published his memoirs in 1986, and died in 1988.

Isopoda (nominated by Cwmhiraeth) An order of crustaceans, of which probably the best known is the common woodlouse, which are quite often found when lifting small rocks and other such objects in a good chunk of the world, and which can roll up into a ball. I've always thought they were adorable. I might be a bit weird. Anyway! Crustaceans are generally sea-dwelling species, and while the adaptations of the various species of woodlice make them the major exception to this rule, other members of the isopods are aquatic.
And, on the subject of sea-dwelling isopods, let's talk about Cymothoa exigua, my favourite isopod, and probably one of my favourite species. Common name: The tongue-eating louse. It's stranger than it sounds, though. It doesn't just eat the tongue. No, it replaces it, then feeds off of the fish's blood or mucus. The thing is, though, it's actually a pretty good tongue: There's little or no survival difference between infected and uninfected fish, just one has a mouth full of louse. It's the only known example of a parasite functionally replacing a host organ. It's awesome! If anyone manages to get a really good picture of one of these, please, please nominate it for featured picture.
Oh, yeah, and the author, Cwmhiraeth, is probably one of the most prolific creators of featured and good articles on underdeveloped, but massively important topics.

Æthelwold ætheling (nominated by Dudley Miles ) The younger son of a King of Wessex, Æthelwold made a bid for the throne after his father died but was unable to rally enough support. Fleeing to a nearby Danish-controlled area, Æthelwold was able to gather an army and march on Wessex, but died in a Pyrrhic victory.

Beaune Altarpiece (nominated by Ceoil and Victoria) More commonly known as The Last Judgement, this large work of art comprises fifteen paintings on nine panels. The most recognizable of these are the nine panels of the Abrahamic concept of the Last Judgement.

Pictor (nominated by Casliber) A constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, Pictor is notable partly "because of its second-brightest star Beta Pictoris, 63.4 light-years distant from Earth, which is surrounded by an unusual dust disk rich in carbon, as well as an exoplanet (extrasolar planet)." This is the 18th featured constellation out of 88 in the sky.

Featured lists

Three featured lists were promoted this week.

List of accolades received by 12 Years a Slave (film) (nominated by Cowlibob and Bruce Campbell) 12 Years a Slave is a 2013 historical drama film directed and produced by Steve McQueen. The film received the Academy Award for Best Picture and nearly 400 other accolades which are listed here. The accolades were in a variety of categories with particular praise for its direction, screenplay and the acting of its cast.

List of accolades received by Grand Theft Auto V (nominated by CR4ZE) The widely anticipated Grand Theft Auto V was released last September, and it did not disappoint—it made one billion dollars in three days, and it currently has a score of 97 on Metacritic. The video game has won 33 of the 108 awards it has been nominated for.

List of Bleach video games (nominated by Nightwolf87) Bleach, a Japanese manga and anime series, has 23 video games, including five different series, based in its universe since the first was released in 2005. Only four have been released outside of Japan.

Featured pictures

Five featured pictures were promoted this week.

Black-fronted Dotterel

Red-kneed Dotterel

Portrait of a Young Woman (created by Sandro Botticelli, nominated by Brandmeister) "Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting which is commonly believed to be by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, executed between 1480 and 1485. Others attribute authorship to Jacopo del Sellaio. The woman is shown in profile but with her bust turned in three-quarter view to reveal a cameo medallion she is wearing round her neck. The medallion is a copy in reverse of "Nero's Seal", a famous antique carnelian representing Apollo and Marsyas, which belonged to Lorenzo de' Medici."

Sulphur mining in Kawah Ijen, Indonesia (created by Sémhur, nominated by Crisco 1492) "The Ijen volcano complex is a group of stratovolcanoes in the Banyuwangi Regency of East Java, Indonesia. It is inside a larger caldera Ijen, which is about 20 kilometers wide. The Gunung Merapi stratovolcano is the highest point of that complex. The name "Merapi" means "mountain of fire" in the Indonesian language; Mount Merapi in central Java and Marapi in Sumatra have the same etymology. West of Gunung Merapi is the Ijen volcano, which has a one-kilometer-wide turquoise-colored acid crater lake. The lake is the site of a labor-intensive sulfur mining operation, in which sulfur-laden baskets are carried by hand from the crater floor. The work is low-paid and very onerous. Workers earn around Rp 50,000 - 75,000 ($5.50-$8.30) per day and once out of the crater, still need to carry their loads of sulfur chunks about three kilometers to the nearby Pultuding Valley to get paid."

Sharp-tailed sandpiper (created and nominated by JJ Harrison) "The sharp-tailed sandpiper (Calidris acuminata)... is a small wader. More recently, a review of new data has indicated that this bird should perhaps better be placed into the genus Philomachus – as P. acuminatus – which now contains only the ruff but if the sharp-tailed sandpiper is merged into it would need to accommodate the broad-billed sandpiper also (Thomas et al., 2004)." The sandpiper "breeds in the boggy tundra of northeast Asia and is strongly migratory, wintering in south east Asia and Australasia. It occurs as a rare autumn migrant to North America, but in western Europe only as a very rare vagrant."

Red-kneed dotterel (created and nominated by JJ Harrison) "The red-kneed dotterel (Erythrogonys cinctus) is a long-legged, medium-sized (length 17–20 cm, wingspan 33–38 cm, weight 40-55 g) plover in a monotypic genus in the subfamily Vanellinae. It is often gregarious and will associate with other waders of its own and different species, even when nesting. It is nomadic and sometimes irruptive."

Black-fronted dotterel (created and nominated by JJ Harrison) "The black-fronted dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) is a small, slender plover, widespread throughout most of Australia, to which it is native and New Zealand, where it self-introduced in the 1950s. It is common in freshwater wetlands, around the edges of lakes and billabongs, and in shallow, temporary claypan pools. It is also found occupying saline mudflats and estuaries, but rarely. Unlike many other wading birds, black-fronted dotterels retain the same plumage all year round, which makes identification easier."

Sulphur mining in Ijen, a complex of volcanoes in Indonesia.