Giant isopod
The giant isopod looks like a woodlouse, but it is as big as a cat. It lives deep down in the cold, dark sea. Its big eyes seem to glow when light shines on them.
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Fun facts
It lives between about 300 metres and 2 kilometres under the water, where it is cold and dark.
Each of its eyes has more than 4000 tiny parts.
Animals in the cold deep sea often grow much bigger than their cousins and live longer. Scientists call this deep sea gigantism.
Its babies hatch looking like tiny grown-ups, but they are missing their last pair of legs.
The first one was found in fishermen's nets in 1879.
Most asked questions about Giant isopod
?How big is a giant isopod?
Usually about 19 to 36 centimetres long. The biggest one ever checked was about 50 centimetres.
?Is a giant isopod related to a woodlouse?
Yes. Both are isopods, and they are distant cousins of shrimps and crabs too.
?What does a giant isopod eat?
It eats the remains of dead animals that sink to the bottom of the sea.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Bathynomus giganteus
- Named by
- Milne-Edwards, 1879
- Group
- Woodlice
- Family
- Cirolanidae
- Classification
- Malacostraca > Isopoda > Cirolanidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Bathynomus giganteus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by x768. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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