from Hacker News

New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered

by kanobo on 9/11/20, 5:42 PM with 24 comments

  • by lxe on 9/11/20, 6:12 PM

  • by kanobo on 9/11/20, 6:10 PM

    Sorry, the site is down now, but here is a cached version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200826125737/https://news.nus....

  • by dane-pgp on 9/11/20, 8:00 PM

    > The new giant isopod species was described from two specimens, ... 950 and 1,260 metres, during the South Java Deep Sea Biodiversity Expedition 2018

    If you skim-read the article, you might end up with a very different picture in your head.

  • by ncmncm on 9/11/20, 6:35 PM

    This might be a relative of our pill bugs? But there is probably a lot more evolution between them than between, e.g., horses and sharks. Which, by the way, is also bigger than between bony fish and sharks.

  • by chiefalchemist on 9/11/20, 6:39 PM

    > The team says that the discovery is an example of deep-sea gigantism

    Are there theories about this phenomenon? Does this explain the historically atypical size of the dinosaurs? Why doesn't it continue to happen? For example, why aren't there giant robins (birds) or tiny ones? Is there not a single eco-system ever where this would be an advantage?

    From another article on the same discovery

  • by gridlockd on 9/11/20, 8:21 PM

    I'm kinda disappointed, these aren't much larger than the giant isopods that you can buy at a well-stocked Asian grocery.

  • by C4ne on 9/11/20, 7:38 PM

    Could we leave these animals out in the ocean please? I know that there will be people that want to eat them because it gives them some kind of superpower you‘ve never heard of. But if you look at the year 2020 you may know that wild species can give you wild diseases. Or maybe we just limit interaction with these species only to scientists ghat know how to handle them.