As their name suggests, giant isopods get big. Really big. Typically, giant isopods are between 7.5 and 14.2 inches in length, but they can get much bigger: One specimen pulled up with an ROV in ...

Isopods are invertebrates – animals without backbones – that belong to the group known as crustaceans, which also includes crabs and shrimp. There are about 10,000 species of isopods.

Giant isopods are relatives of woodlice. But despite being discovered in 1879, relatively little is known about their lives on the ocean floor. Skip to content. ... as the seafloor is mostly barren.

A new isopod species has been discovered in a lab in Singapore, and it is massive, at least relative to other giant isopods. It's named after Darth Vader. The post New ‘Supergiant’ Isopod ...

In the shadowy depths of the ocean, giant isopods oversized relatives of pill bugs scavenge the seafloor with their armored bodies and 14 legs. These deep-sea crustaceans, reaching up to 2.5 feet ...

Scientists believe this isopod's big size is due to the fact it lives deep underwater, on the ocean bed. This new species of giant isopod is around 2,500 times bigger than a garden woodlouse, ...

This is the third supergiant isopod species discovered in the South China Sea since 2017, researchers said. Photo by Huang M-C, Kawai T (2025) At a fishing port in Taiwan, researchers bought four ...

Researcher Peter Ng examining giant isopods at a seafood market in Hanoi, Vietnam. Nguyen Thanh Son. Ng says the team chose the species’ name because of its resemblance to Darth Vader’s mask, ...

Their findings, published in the Journal of Natural History on August 9th, reveal that B. yucatanensis is pretty big by isopod standards, with 14 legs and measuring about 25 times longer than the ...

This is the third supergiant isopod species discovered in the South China Sea since 2017, researchers said. Photo by Huang M-C, Kawai T (2025) At a fishing port in Taiwan, researchers bought four ...