What has 14 legs, lives at the bottom of the sea, and looks like Darth Vader? It's a newly discovered species of supergiant isopod, and should you happen to be in Vietnam sometime soon, you can buy one and eat it.
Related to the pillbugs (aka woodlice) that you might find in your backyard, supergiant isopods are marine crustaceans that are found on the deep seabed of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. They live at depths of up to 2,140 m (7,021 ft), grow up to 40 cm (16 inches) in length, and can tip the scales at close to 3 kg (6.6 lb).
They're also often unintentionally caught in fishing trawler nets.
Up until about seven years ago, fishermen in Vietnam would sell them as an inexpensive bycatch seafood product. Since then, however, they have come become a pricey delicacy, reportedly tasting much like lobster.
As a result, they're now purposely caught and sold alive in Vietnamese seafood markets, where they're known as bọ biển (sea bugs).
Back in March of 2022, scientists from Hanoi University bought several supergiant isopods of the genus Bathynomus from restaurants and fishermen in Quy Nhơn City – and no, not for eating.
Because the creatures looked a bit different than other supergiants, some of them were sent to Prof. Peter Ng at the National University of Singapore's Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. All of the specimens were caught in the South China Sea, with the largest one measuring 27 cm long (10.6 in).
Working with Conni M. Sidabalok from the National Research and Innovation Agency Indonesia, and Nguyen Thanh Son from the Vietnam National University, Ng determined that the specimens constituted a previously unknown Bathynomus species.
The team named the species Bathynomus vaderi in reference to one of its most distinguishing features: a head that resembles Darth Vader's trademark flared helmet. Some of the species' other unique characteristics are described in a paper that was recently published in the journal ZooKeys.
Of course, this isn't the first time that fishermen have brought "unknown" species to our attention. In 1938, after the species had been assumed extinct for 66 million years, a coelacanth fish was found amongst a fisherman's catch off the east coast of South Africa.
Source: Pensoft Publishers