Okay, just playing around... I know this isn't ceph, but you might like this. This is an actual deep-sea creature from around my area of the world (California), probably from the Monterey Canyon. Its big (almost about a foot long), and yes, its alive...

Can anyone guess with it is?

Oh, and Kat and Steve: you already know, so don't give it away, okay? :heee:

Sushi and Sake,

John

Why, that's a...

OK, OK. :roll:

It's an animal I started my systematic career on, though. Cool 8)

No way!! Really?

Sweet, dude!! Er... dudette...

Where'd you get the specimens?

I believe what you have here is an example of the deep water isopod Bathynomus. This lives at a depth of 700-1000m and is a voracious carnivore and scavenger. It is known from Australian waters and the Philippines, though a second species, Bathynomus giganteus is known from the Western Atlantic. This creature is frequently caught by fishermen eating its way through fish trapped in their nets. It grows up to 30cm long.

Either that or you have a living trilobite. If so, I suggest you delete the picture here and ring The Discovery Channel immediately!

Do I win a coconut?

You rock, Phil!!

Or I can fake it, and sell it to the FOX network... :P

John

Where'd you get the specimens?

Well, OK, not that particular isopod - some little ones from Papua New Guinea. But I do have a Bathynomus egg at home - it's about a half inch in diameter!

Bah.

Go on, spill the beans..........................

Was ist das?

i saw one of those at an aquarium one time.... i was shocked :shock: that there were foot long deep sea cockroaches/pillbugs.... since it was in charleston i decided it definitely qualified as a 'palmetto bug'

Yuh, I think that's an Isopod too. Good one, Phil. Rather ancient (yes?) crustaceans, and the familiar tiny terrestrial Pillbugs or Roly-polies as many of us here call them are in fact isopods, so technically crustaceans! :P

rusty

I agree with WK, this looks like one of them crustacean bugs of the sea. Mentioning shellfish makes me hungry but Mystery Ocean Bug doesn't look good to eat. I wouldn't eat a palmetto bug - isn't that just a cockroach by another name? :yuck:

Melissa

:bonk:

Man, I used to REALLY love crustaceans.... I have eaten about 40 shrimp in a single sitting, and crabs and lobsters.... OH so yummy!

Then I started diving, and I started watching what shrimp, crab and lobsters eat for a living. Their sustenance is basically carrion and feces.

They ARE the cockroaches of the seas.... :shock:

They ARE the cockroaches of the seas....
:headphon: lalalalal i'm not listening lalalala :headphon:

- isn't that just a cockroach by another name? :yuck:


yes but a bit larger than the ordinary ones...walking down the back streets of charleston at night you'll see some rather huge ones...

Though it's been years since last I visited the New England Aquarium, they did keep a few of those things in an "abyssal" tank. Anyone who wants to see a peculiar crustacean doing absolutely nothing should check it out.

Clem

Yup, 'twas a tank of Bathynomus and a few dogfish... though I think as my time there went on I noticed a mysterious decrease in the dogfish population...

For all you fans on convergent evolution, have you seen this South-Atlantic dwelling isopod? It is known as Serolis trilobitoides due to its resemblance to..........well, I'll let you guess that one.

http://www.island.net/~rolfl/TP5.htm

Here's another species, and a beautiful specimen. These things look as if they have not altered for 500 million years or so:

http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/nsf/fguide/arthropoda30.html

Nice picture, not so sure about the subject matter tho' !

When I was about 10 or 12 I had a real phobia of what we call here in NZ "Slaters", AKA wood louse, AKA isopod etc absolutely freaked if I saw one, anyhow we had a class trip to the local Natural History Museum and my incredibly stupid teacher dropped a large (very, I'm sure it was about 8 foot long!!) fossil one in my lap!! The screams were bloodcurdling I'm told! & the museum were nearly short one specimen. I kinda got over it when I started marine science and hauled in a net were the catch was teaming with the things!!

I saw the original specimen not that long ago, but it's been damaged....the blood smeared fangs seem to have vanished and it had shrunk to about 15 cm!

J

Hi jean,

maybe you'll feel better if i tell you that slaters are a good 'emergency' food for baby cuttlefish... they seem to last in saltwater for ages and cuttles seem to like them... it was the closest thing to a shrimp i could find when i ran out of them for a few days...

C

Well, I can see the obvious resemblance to Limulus (I had the opportunity to work closely with them in Florida). Make sense... Same basic environs, same basic design.

Schweet deal! Thanks for the photos!

John

maybe you'll feel better if i tell you that slaters are a good 'emergency' food for baby cuttlefish... they seem to last in saltwater for ages and cuttles seem to like them... it was the closest thing to a shrimp i could find when i ran out of them for a few days...


Welllllll I s'pose everything has some sort of redeeming feature Colin but they still give me the creeps!!!

Interesting coincidence Just went to a departmental seminar on Bryozoans (lace corals, sea moss, sea mats etc etc) as epibionts on motile substrates! the researcher in question was looking at large isopods & Picnogonids (sea spiders) from Antarctica, Horseshoe crabs, blue crabs and sea snakes but also fossil Trilobites, crabs and "squid" (it had an external shell!) pretty interesting stuff. We suggested he also need to look at Nautilus and Ammonites!! essentially he's trying to compare extant critters with fossils to determine the evolutionary history of the bryozoans, very cool!

J

Very cool... I'm familiar with Bryos, but I had no idea that they could attach to mobile substrates! Is the relationship ecto-commensal or parasitic, or both?

Sushi and Nigiri Sake,

John

Is the relationship ecto-commensal or parasitic, or both?

Hi John,

Mainly ecto-commensal from what I gather the host appears to suffer very little from the passengers and in some cases may get a slight camouflage benefit (crabs etc). Only exception to this was a trilobite where the bryos had overgrown all of one eye and most of the other! :cyclops:

We're also pretty certain that one of our fish spp has bryo's growing on the skin (fish has no scales) but we need to wait until one dies before we can get our bryo person to examine them. This fish is also known to carry hydroids.

Cheers
J

- isn't that just a cockroach by another name? :yuck:


yes but a bit larger than the ordinary ones...walking down the back streets of charleston at night you'll see some rather huge ones...

like an idiot, i forgot one slight detail..... they can fly :roll: was reminded after dispatching two over the past few days.....