In One Ear: Lord of the deep
The Ear comes from a lobstering village on the East Coast, and always thought lobsters were particularly creepy-looking creatures.
However, they look positively glamorous next to a newly described and named deep-sea crustacean, a highly popular delicacy in Vietnam since 2017, according to New Scientist. It's as tasty as lobster, they say. Perhaps, if you close your eyes.
The foot-long 14-legged critter (and each leg is a foot long), bathynomus vaderi, was discovered as a new isopod by reasearchers in a fish market, and weighs about 2 pounds. The name, given in 2022, is a salute to 'Star Wars' villain Darth Vader's mask.
'I am the biggest 'Star Wars' fan in the team, as it's my vintage,' said study co-author Peter Ng, a crustacean researcher at the National University of Singapore. said. ' ... But we all agree that the face of bathynomus looks so much like Darth Vader, that it just had to be named after the Sith Lord.'
That's all very well, but flipped upside down, it looks like a horseshoe crab. Ugh. The Vietnamese have a less lovely name, sea bug.
'The scale of harvesting is a matter for concern. It's a challenge for all deep-sea species we fish,' another researcher said. 'We know so little about their biology, so we need more studies to evaluate how best to conserve and manage this resource.' (Photo: Nguyen Thanh Son/New Scientist)
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