The video is the actual video from my research group’s dive with a remotely operated vehicle in the deep Gulf of Mexico. The background on all this alligatorfall project and why a bunch of scientists would sink an alligator in the first place is in our previous post. You can also read Atlas Obscura’s great write up on our work.

The post The Video of Giant Isopods Eating an Alligator in the Deep Sea You Must Watch! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post Experience the Life of the Deep Gulf of Mexico in 20 Videos first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post The Fantastical Beasts of the Deep Gulf of Mexico first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I am not sure when this obsession with both small and large things began. One of the earliest photographs of me is in a giant rocking chair. With a big smile on my face, I am dwarfed by the colossal piece of furniture. Sadly, in researching this post I discovered this rocking chair is not the largest. That title is bestowed to a towering rocking chair, a 56.5 feet tall behemoth in Casey, Illinois, not only the world’s largest rocking chair but also the largest chair in all of America. I will of course need to visit, and photograph, myself next to the massive chair. Another photograph to add to my photo collection of myself with oversized objects. The world’s largest Adirondack chair and me…got it. Largest chest of drawers…done. Largest frying pan…visited. Giant 6-foot tall cheese grater…photographed and almost bought. I could go on and on.

I never realized I could get paid for my obsession. I did not at some point in high school realize or declare I wanted a vocation focused on extreme sizes. Nor was such a trajectory flagged as a possibility on those mandated vocational tests. I got flagged for being perfect for cake decorating. No joke. Nothing about decorating tiny or giant cakes. Of course, who would even think you could make a career out of a passion for size, except maybe Guinness World Records? No, I came by it all by accident.

As an undergraduate, I applied for a summer program to conduct research with a biologist. Knowing at the time I wanted to be a marine biologist, I applied to do summer research counting fish on the coral reefs of St. Croix. An unshockingly, popular choice among undergraduates, I did not get the position. My second and third choices were the only other ocean-based projects in the program. When the scientist involved with my second choice project called to invite me to work with him that summer, I didn’t even remember what the project was. I wasn’t really concerned with the specifics of the other projects because how could I not be selected for my first choice, St. Croix, dream project. Opposed to the beautiful tropical beaches of the Caribbean, my destiny would be to work in a windowless lab all summer in Boston. The project didn’t exceedingly interest me at the time as I wanted to be a field scientist and microscopy in the lab sounded…well dull. But working in an air-conditioned lab in the big city sounded better than living with my parents in rural Arkansas working in the intense Southern heat sweating in a factory. So off to Boston I went. Within a few hours of the first day, I fell in love with the project. So much so I asked that scientist, a preeminent deep-sea biologist and expert on the body size of marine invertebrates, if I could pursue a doctorate with him.

In the biological world, size is more than a novelty. How an organism relates to the world around it is determined by its size, and understanding what influences size is key to understanding the diversity of life itself.  That summer I measured the size of 100’s of tiny snails and when I returned to pursue my Ph.D. I measured thousands more. In total I measured 14,278 deep-sea snails. The largest no bigger than Abraham Lincoln’s head on the face of the penny. The smallest the size of his nose. Those snails I measured were collected from off the coast of New England from depths of over 600 feet to well over 18,000 feet, from the shallows of the New England continental shelf to the abyssal plains.

Why would anyone measure close to 15,000 snails? In the late 1800’s Henry Nottidge Mosely wrote: “Some animals appear to be dwarfed by deep- sea conditions.” By the 1970s, Hjalmar Thiel of Universität Hamburg observed that the deep sea is a “small organism habitat.” Increased depth typically translates into less food in the oceans with the deep-sea being a very food poor environment. As you might expect this has profound effects on the body size of deep-sea animals. Thiel’s seminal 1975 work demonstrated that with increased depth, smaller organisms became more dominant. At depths greater than 4 kilometers on the vast abyssal plains where food is extremely limited, you find some of the most diminutive sizes. In a particularly striking example of this, my doctoral advisor Michael Rex and I calculated those nearly 15,000 deep-sea snails I measured could fit completely inside a single Busycon carica, a fist-sized New England knobbed whelk found along the coast. But by measuring all those snails, Mike and I were able to document exactly how size in these snails changes over a 3.5 mile increase in depth. That study was the first of its kind and remains the largest number of deep-sea animals ever individually measured.

But to say that all creatures of the deep are miniaturized overlooks the complexity of size evolution in the deep sea. Some taxa actually become giants. The Giant Isopod, a roly-poly the size of very large men’s shoe, and sea-spiders the size of dinner plates, quickly dispel the Lilliputian view of the deep sea. Although all those deep-sea snails are smaller than their shallow-water relatives, shockingly Mike and I also found that they actually increase in size with greater depth and presumed lower food availability. To further confound the situation, other scientists have reported the exact opposite pattern in other types of snails, whose size decreases with depth. The same appeared to be true in other taxa, such as crustaceans. How can the deep-sea be both a habitat of dwarfs and giants?

To answer that, I turned from the Earth’s largest habitat to one of its smallest—islands. On islands both giants and dwarfs exist. The diminished kiwi and the enormous Moa of New Zealand, the colossal Komodo dragon on the island of Komodo, the extinct pygmy elephants on the islands of the Mediterranean, the ant-sized frog of the Seychelles, the giant hissing cockroach of Madagascar and the giant tortoise of the Galapagos represent just a few of the multitudes of size extremes on islands. In 1964, J. Bristol Foster of the University of East Africa demonstrated that large mammals became miniaturized over time on islands. Conversely, small mammals tended toward gigantism. This occurs with such frequency that scientists refer to it as “Foster’s rule” or the “Island rule.” Big animals getting small and small animals getting large.

My colleagues and I discovered a similar pattern in 2006 between shallow and deep seas. As shallow-water gastropods evolved into deep-sea dwellers, small species became larger and large species became smaller. Interestingly, size did not shift in a parallel manner. Larger taxa became disproportionately smaller sized—that is, both converged on a size somewhat smaller than medium. I’ve since observed this pattern in radically different taxa, such as bivalves, sharks, and cephalopods.

The fact that islands and the deep sea have so little in common represents a wonderful opportunity that allows elimination of several hypotheses. Of course, what the deep sea lacks is food. The absence of sunlight precludes plants.   Thus, for the majority of organisms living there, the food chain starts with plankton, dead organisms and other organic debris descending from the ocean’s surface. Less than five per cent of the total food available drifts to the sea floor, leading to an extremely food-limited environment. On islands, less food is available because the small land areas support fewer plants at the base of the food chain.

In either case, island and deep-sea animals need to be efficient and creative in their acquisition of food. In both habitats, there may not be enough total food to support populations of giants only. Unable to travel long distances to search for food or to store large fat reserves to fast through periods of food scarcity, smaller organisms are also at a disadvantage. If these contrasting evolutionary pressures were equal, size would be driven to an intermediate. However, the selection against larger sizes is greater, leading toward an evolutionary convergence that is slightly smaller than the intermediate size. Thus, differential responses to food reduction by different- sized organisms may resolve the outstanding paradox of divergent size patterns in the deep. In the interests of reaching this ‘golden medium’, some species become giant while others miniaturized.

In that summer of 1996, as a clueless undergraduate, I started my scientific adventure that fueled my obsession with size. Two decades later, I still am excited by the body size of animals. Much of my research, and the students who work with me, is dedicated to understanding how the expansive variety of sizes on Earth from bacteria to blue whales emerged. Did I mention the great selfie I took recently with a giant whale vertebra the size of coffee table?

The post Craig With Big Things (and Small Things) first appeared on Deep Sea News.

So naturally DSN and I are onboard with the initiative at Southern Fried Science to adopt the Giant Isopod as the National Deep-Sea Animal of the United States.

Andrew Thaler discusses nicely why the Giant Isopod is the perfect American icon for the deep sea and this great country.

(1) The giant deep-sea isopod is a charismatic, iconic deep-sea species commonly found in the deep waters of the United States, particularly the Gulf of Mexico and Southern Atlantic;

(2) The giant deep-sea isopod has attained a level of popular culture awareness in recent years that is unrivaled by most enigmatic deep-sea animals, with a small but persistent presence in art, film, and music;

(3) The first specimen was collected from the Gulf of Mexico in 1879 by renowned American scientist Alexander Agassiz;

(4) The discovery of the giant deep-sea isopod provided important early evidence to disprove the Azoic Hypothesis–that the ocean was lifeless beyond a few hundred feet;…

(6) The giant deep-sea isopod, being at times either fiercely independent or collectively powerful, capable of surviving and thriving in the food-limited deep ocean through tenacity and resourcefulness, models many shared American values…

(8) The giant deep-sea isopod can serve as an Ambassador Species for deep-sea ecosystems within the territorial waters of the United States, inspiring the public to explore and learn about this unseen world.

Are you with us?

Step 1: Go sign the petition. Don’t worry it will take you all of 2 minutes.

Step 2: Share this post and the petition link with all your friends and family on Facebook, Twitter, and what ever other crazy social media you are into.

The post Adopt the giant deep-sea isopod, Bathynomus giganteus, as the National Deep-Sea Animal of the United States. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

For those of us who love the spineless weirdoes of the ocean, it can get old always hearing about the dolphins and the whales, the sharks and the fish and the turtles that everyone loves so much (and that have a disproportionate representation in our culture: just think of all that Lisa Frank swag from the nineties).

Fellow invert nerds, please enjoy these gifs of invertebrates punching vertebrates in the face.

1. Giant isopod vs. shark

2. Sand Striker vs. fish

3. Giant Pacific octopus vs. shark

4. Mantis shrimp vs. fish

5. Sea stars and nemerteans vs. seal

6. Octopus vs. cat

The post 6 times an invertebrate punched a vertebrate in the face (and it was awesome) first appeared on Deep Sea News.

You might have noticed that my posting frequency is down recently.  Why?

1. Kevin Z convinced me to start Tweeting.  There seems to be an inverse relationship to my writing for DSN and posting Tweets.  Previous attempts to integrate our Twitter content into DSN were rocky at best and met with many complaints.  Suggestions on how to integrate the two meaningfully are welcomed. You can follow me at DrCraigMc

2. I am working on a review of this book for American Scientist.

3. I am also writing a feature article for American Scientist following on the theme of my talk last year at Sigma Xi.

4. Isopocaplyse 2010 consumed a bit of my time.  If you didn’t catch it already check out GlassBox Design and National Geographic’s coverage.  I am delightfully snarky!

5. I worked with the spectacularly talented Robin Smith to put together a press release and video for my recent paper in Ecology.  That was met with a fair amount of cricket chirping.  O’ well Bora, Science360, and I think its cool.

6. Multiple scientific papers in the works right now on deep-sea biogeography, source-sink dynamics in the deep sea, the evolution of body size in deep-sea bivalves, what drives the evolution of size on islands, describing the new species above, changes in energy consumption of snails through geologic time, changes in seamount diversity with increasing depth, and how microhabitat diversity in the deep sea drives biodiversity.  Whew!

7.  My day job.

8.  The fact there is only 24 hours in a day.

So what would I like to blog on but haven’t found time?

1. The discovery of the world’s deepest hydrothermal vent. It’s really hot and deep!

2. What will likely be the coolest discovery of the year and decade…anaerobic multicellular organisms in the deep sea.  This one is so cool I just decided to stay up late to write about it.  While I grab another Ardbeg and you wait for the next couple hours, check out Susan Milius’s spectacular write up.

3. Larvae from afar colonize deep-sea hydrothermal vents after a catastrophic eruption

Any other papers or news I should add to this list?

The post What’s New With the Dr. M and the Oceans? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

It all started on Reddit where the following comment was posted

I work for a Sub-sea Survey Company, recently this beast came up attached to one of our ROVs. It measures a wee bit over 2.5 feet head to tail, and we expect it latched onto the ROV at roughly 8,500 feet depth. Unfortunately, the e-mail that these pictures were attached to came from a contractor, and the ship he was operating from (and therefore location) is unknown, so I can’t tell you what part of the Earth this beast was living.

Word from an email I received is that the ROV was submerged on the West Sirius Oil Rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The picture that accompanied the post…

That’s when $%@# got crazy.

Fox News hit the scene with Terrifying Sea Critter Hauled from Ocean’s Depths in which several heinous errors were made. First the piece refers to it as a “crablike creature”.  First isopods are in the Order Isopoda and crabs are in the Order Decapoda.  Although both are crustaceans, this statement is the equivalent of saying an elephantlike bat. The Fox article proceeds to cite our old giant isopod post over at ScienceBlogs instead the posts on giant isopods here at the new improved DSN.  The Fox story also cherry picks from original post stating that I posted that their large size is related to temperature.  Reading the actual post you will see that I clearly state others proposed this and that I believe the size to be an adaptation to living in the food-limited deep sea (as I have proposed for other deep-sea invertebrates, press coverage here).

Alternatively, the larger size also increases fasting potential because greater fat reserves can be maintained. Larger size also confers a greater foraging area, important for either a scavenger or a predator.  Both of these are important adaptations in the food-limited deep sea.

Unfortunately these errors were also perpetuated by National Geographic. Come on Fox News! Of course this is not nearly as annoying as legitimate news sources citing unsubstantiated wikipedia information as a reference.

Really wacky is the supposed diet of the Giant Isopod. “They feed on the carcasses of whales, giant squid, and other large sea creatures.”  It is true that the Giant Isopod is an opportunistic scavenger and is known to feed on the carcasses of other organisms. But compare the previous information on the diet compared to that of Kevin on his thoroughly researched but apparently ignored post.

Gut content analysis of B. giganteus show mostly fish fragments, as well cephalopod, caridean shrimp and galatheid crab remains (3). In smaller quantities, sponge fragments, other isopods, echinoderms, nematodes and tunicates have been found (1, 3)…Most authors agree that B. giganteus is a scavenger (3, 5, 6), but some suggest it is also a facultative predator (3, 6). Specimens in aquaria have survived 8 weeks between feedings (5) and it speculated that this may be an adaptation for carrying its brood, which would be severely impacted by a full stomach (3)…B. giganteus has also been collected from baited traps outside of methane seeps in the northern Gulf of Mexico (11).

Giant squid?  Where did that come from?

Of course I also have a problem with people referring to this beloved creature as a terrifying sea beast, terrifying sea creature, a sea roach or cockaroach (a comparison even worse comparing it to a crab), and monster or prehistoric creature that led on person to say ““KILL IT!  KILL IT WITH FIRE!  OH GOD OH GOD GET IT AWAY!”  Giant Isopods are magnificent creatures nothing short of an spectacular evolutionary trajectory.

Another error is “Fossil records date these cockroaches of the sea back more than 160 million years, before the Earth’s continents were even formed.”  Where did that information come from?  The idea of a old and ancient deep-sea organisms has long ago been dispelled.  The lack of deep-sea fossils, especially of large organisms, past 100 mya also flags this statement.  Indeed, I think we can reasonably say we know little of when Giant Isopods emerged in time.

Another red flag is the unconfirmed report that this specimen is  “more than 2 and half feet long“.  As a reader reminded me (hat tip to D.K.), published work puts the length of Bathynomus giganteus “between the range of 27-37 cm.  (~0.9-1.2ft).  However, Soto & Mincarone (2001; Mare Magnum 1(2): 141-145) list 42 cm (~1.4ft) as the largest of 144 specimens they examined, and MacAvoy et al. (2002) indicate that they have a 48cm (~1.6ft) specimen in a collection somewhere.” So either this specimen is the mother of all Giant Isopods or this is just a great fish story.

Of course the other interesting thing to emerge from these stories is all the interesting titles bestowed to me. My favorite: “deep-sea biological systems expert”.  Of course I prefer high commander of deep-sea science. Discovery News labels me as a postdoctoral fellow with MBARI, a position I haven’t held for well over a year. Wait a minute didn’t we use to work for them?  Shouldn’t they know?

Of course, Kevin on Twitter wonders “Wait, can I be quoted without ever having been interviewed??” Which brings me to the next point…

Thankfully Alan Boyle comes to the rescue. He actually interviewed me.  Yesterday Alan and I had a great discussion about Isopocalypse 2010. But Alan should also be commended because he did research. Other reporters take note, it is called research and you should do it. It is hard for scientists to not feel frustrated by the lack of accuracy on major points of the story. Overall, it leaves me wondering how issues like this help deteriorate any bridge between scientists and the media and degrading our trust in you.

Hat tip also goes to Alan for linking to www.deepseanews.com.

You can check out all our greatest giant isopod posts by following our giant isopod category.

[UPDATE #1] Isopocalypse 2010 may have claimed its first victim…me.  The Sun states “Prof Craig McClain, of North Carolina’s National Evolutionary Synthesis Centre, said: “Some are even bigger. No one from The Sun ever spoke with me. As such, I am little unclear of how they could obtained a direct quote from me.  Moreover, given my comments above you can clearly see that I believe quite the opposite.

[UPDATE #2-KZ] AOL News attributes a quote to me “Notes Deep Sea News blogger Kevin Zelnio, “the maximum reported size of Bathynomus giganteus is likely to be an artifact of our sampling.” though never talked to me. If they are quoting from one of our many giant isopod related posts I do not know since they did not link to any particular post where I might have said. In fact, I had to track it down and it was in a comment on Dr. M’s post about isopod body size evolution. le sigh…

[UPDATE #3]  The woo continues at Mail Online. No sources are cited for the information and most of the statements are factually incorrect.  “Many deep-sea crustaceans and invertebrates tend to be larger than their shallow-water counterparts. It is not yet known whether this is due to the colder temperature, higher pressure or scarcer food resources.”  Actually, many deep-sea invertebrates tend to be smaller their shallow water counterparts.  Thiel was the first to document this overwhelming trend in 1975. As to the second part, again although temperature is posited as the reason for deep-sea gigantism there is little to no support for this conjecture.  Deep-sea miniaturization is the norm and exactly opposite of what you would expected if colder temperatures where driving size.  In addition and as mentioned above, changes in body size are still observed in organisms in the deep sea even when temperature does not vary.  No body has ever posited pressure to control body size and I cannot even think about how this mechanism would work.

[UPDATE #4] Perhaps its been unfair for me to criticize others without both expressing my own qualifications to speak on these issues and citing my references so

1. McClain, C.R. and Rex, M.A. (2001) The Relationship Between Dissolved Oxygen Concentration and Maximum Size in Deep-Sea Turrid Gastropods: An Application of Quantile Regression. Marine Biology, 139: 681-685
2. McClain, C.R., M. Fougerolle, M.A. Rex, and J. Welch. (2001) MOCNESS Estimates of the Size and Abundance of a Pelagic Gonostomatid Fish (Cyclothone pallida) off the Bahamas. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 81:869-871
3. McClain, C.R., M.A. Rex, and R. Jabbour. (2005) Deconstructing bathymetric patterns of body size in deep-sea gastropods. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 297:181-187
4. McClain, C.R. (2005) Bathymetric patterns of morphological disparity in deep-sea gastropods from the western North Atlantic Basin. Evolution, 59:1492-1499
5. McClain, C.R., A. Boyer, G. Rosenberg (2006) The island rule and the evolution of body size in the deep sea. Journal of Biogeography, 33:1578-1584 [featured article]
6. McClain, C.R. and J. Crouse (2006) The influence of ecological role on bathymetric patterns of deep-sea species: size clines in parasitic gastropods. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 320:161-167
7. Rex, M.A., R.J. Etter, J.S. Morris, J. Crouse, C.R. McClain, N.A. Johnson, C.T. Stuart, R. Thies, R. Avery (2006) Global bathymetric patterns of standing stock and body size in the deep-sea benthos. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 317:1-8 [featured article]
8. McClain, C.R. and J.C. Nekola (2008) The role of local-scale process on terrestrial and deep-sea gastropod body size distributions across multiple scales. Evolutionary Ecology Research, 10:129-146
9. Payne, J.L., A.G. Boyer, J.H. Brown, S. Finnegan, M. Kowalewski, R.A. Krause Jr., S.K. Lyons, C.R. McClain, D.W. McShea, P.M. Novack-Gottshall, F.A. Smith, J.A. Stempien, and S.C. Wang (2009) Evolution of maximum size on Earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, U.S.A., 1:24-27
10. McClain, C.R., M.A. Rex, and R.J. Etter. (2009) Macroecological Patterns in the Deep Sea. In Marine Marcoecology. Eds. K. Roy and J. Whitman. University of Chicago Press
11. McClain, C.R. and A.G. Boyer (2009) Biodiversity and body size are linked across metazoans. Proceedings of Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276: 2209-2215 [Highlighted by Faculty of 1000]
12. McClain, C.R. (2008) Giants and dwarfs in the deep sea. Cosmos, 21

Also see

1. Thiel H (1975) The size structure of the deep-sea benthos. Internationale Revue des Gesamten Hyrdobiologie 60:575-606
2. Thiel H (1979) Structural aspects of the deep-sea benthos. Ambio Special Report 6:25-31
3. Rex MA, Etter RJ (1998) Bathymetric patterns of body size: implications for deep-sea biodiversity. Deep-Sea Research II 45:103-127
4. Rex MA, Etter RJ, Clain AJ, Hill MS (1999) Bathymetric patterns of body size in deep-sea gastropods. Evolution 53:1298-1301
5. Gage JD, Tyler PA (1982) Depth-related gradients in size structure and the bathymetric zonation of deep-sea brittle stars. Marine Biology 71:299-308
6. Gage JD, Tyler PA (1991) Deep-Sea Biology: A Natural History of Organisms at the Deep-Sea Floor, Vol. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
7. Polloni P, Haedrich R, Rowe GT, Clifford CH (1979) The size-depth relationship in deep ocean animals. Internationale Revue des Gesamten Hyrdobiologie 64:39-64
8. Monnoit C, Monniot F (1978) Recent work on the deep-sea tunicates. Oceanography and Marine Biology Annual Review 16:181-228
9. Fujita T, Ohta S (1990) Size structure of dense populations of the brittle star Ophiura sarsii (Ophiuroidea: Echinodermata) in the bathyal zone around Japan. Marine Ecological Progress Series 64:113-122
10. Olabarria C, Thurston MH (2003) Latitudinal and bathymetric trends in body size of the deep-sea gastropod Troshelia berniciensis (King). Marine Biology 143:723-730
11. Sibuet M, Lambert CE, Chesselet R, Laubier L (1989) Density of the major size groups of benthic fauna and tropic input in deep-basins of the Atlantic Ocean. Journal of Marine Research 47:851-867
12. Stoetaert K, Heip C (2002) Size and shape of ocean margin nematodes: morphological diversity and depth-related patterns. Marine Ecology Progress Series 242:179-193

Of course you will also want to see

1. Barradas-Ortiz, C., P. Briones-Fourzan, and E. Lozano-Alvarez. 2003. Seasonal reproduction and feeding ecology of giant isopods Bathynomus giganteus from the continental slope of the Yucatan peninsula. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers 50:495-513.
2. Biesiot, P. M., S. Y. Wang, H. M. Perry, and C. Trigg. 1999. Organic reserves in the midgut gland and fat body of the giant deep-sea isopod Bathynomus giganteus. Journal of Crustacean Biology 19:450-458.
3. Briones-Fourzán, P., and E. Lozano-Alvarez. 1991. Aspects of the biology of the giant isopod Bathynomus giganteus A. Milne Edwards, 1879 )Flabellifera: Cirolanidae), off the Yucatan Peninsula. Journal of Crustacean Biology 11:375-385.
4. Chamberlain, S. C., V. B. Meyer-Rochow, and W. P. Dossert. 1986. Morphology of the compound eye of the giant deep-sea isopod <I>Bathynomus giganteus</I>. Journal of Morphology 189:145-156.
5. Cocke, B. T. 1986. Deep-sea isopods in aquaria. Tropical Fish Hobbyist 35:48-52.
6. Holthuis, L. B., and W. R. Mikulka. 1972. Notes on the deep-sea isopods of the genus Bathynomus A. Milne Edwards, 1879. Bulletin of Marine Science 22:575-591.
7. Klages, M., S. Muyakshin, T. Soltwedel, and W. E. Arntz. 2002. Mechanoreception, a possible mechanism for food fall detection in deep-sea scavengers. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers 49:143-155.
8. Kussakin, O. G. 1973. Peculiarities of the geographical and vertical distribution of marine isopods and the problem of deep-sea fauna origin. Marine Biology 23:19-23.
9. Lemos de Castro, A. 1978. Descricao de uma especie nova gigante do genero Bathynomus Milne-Edwards do litoral brasileiro (Isopoda, Cirolanidae). Revista Brasileira de Biologia 38:37-44.
10. Lloyd, R. E. 1908. The internal anatomy of bathynomus giganteus, with a description of the sexually mature forms. Memoirs of the Indian Museum 1:81-102.
11. MacAvoy, S. E., R. S. Carney, C. R. Fisher, and S. A. Macko. 2002. Use of chemosynthetic biomass by large, mobile, benthic predators in the Gulf of Mexico. Marine Ecology Progress Series 225:65-78.
12. Milne-Edwards, A. 1879. On a gigantic isopod from the great depths of the sea. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 5:241-243.
13. Pless, D. D., M. B. Aguilar, A. Falcon, E. Lozano-Alvarez, and E. P. Heimer de la Cotera. 2003. Latent phenoloxidase activity and N-terminal amino acid sequence of hemocyanin from Bathynomus giganteus, a primitive crustacean. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics 409:402-410.
14. Steeves, H. R. I. 1969. Lipid contents of the hepatopancreas of the isopod Bathynomus giganteus A. Milne Edwards, 1879. Crustaceana 16:135-138.

The post Isopocalypse 2010: Giant Isopods Storm the Internets first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Video is from the always awesome and amazing NOAA Ocean Explorer. Video details:

Deep in the Gulf of Mexico, a one-of-a-kind technology, called the Eye-in-the-Sea, captured video clips over a 24-hour period at over 1,600 ft below the surface. Scenes were often triggered by bioluminescent events, or the electrical bioluminescence (light) sensor of the artificial jellyfish. This video compiles several clips of giant isopods, and a rather large six-gill shark, attacking the fish-head bait. Scientists have estimated this deep-water predator shark to be over 12-ft long. For perspective, the end of the platform where the shark was feeding is about 15-in across. Video courtesy of Operation Deep Scope 2004 Exploration: Seeing with “New Eyes”, NOAA-OE. Please visit source:

The post 6-Gill Shark Steals Food from Poor Giant Isopod first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The Sand Shack is an environmentally friendly brand of apparel and accessories founded in Cape Cod.  The company was started by Brian Lintonin 2006.  After reading about Brian at the Sand Shack page I am convinced his picture may be next to the word entrepreneur, or maybe even overachiever, in the dictionary.  “Brian  was the winner of Temple University’s annual business plan competition in 2008 and was named a top 20 collegiate entrepreneur by StartupNation.”

The company donates a portion of their proceeds to ocean conservation.  Moreover, they often organize and host multiple ocean conservation events over the year. Although the products sold now use ordinary materials, Brian appears serious about moving to recycled materials.  “We are currently exploring the use of recycled materials, including materials that would otherwise be trash that ends up in the ocean (such as tires, plastic bottles, etc).”

A good business model indeed.  Head on over and take a look at some of their hats and flippy floppies (I’m on a boat baby!).  My signature chocolate lobster flippy floppies look very nice on my dainty size 12 feet. That’s right!  You can get simultaneously get flippy floppies with an ocean creature, support a ecoconscious business, and save the oceans.  Kevin and I have already requested a DSN line of giant isopod themed gear, so voice up in the comments if you would like to see this happen.

Kevin and I have invited Brian to guest post here to talk about the rewards and challenges to strating a green enterprise.

The post Sand Shack For Your Flippy Floppy Needs first appeared on Deep Sea News.