#isopods — Public Fediverse posts

Bathynomids are as strange as they get. Giant isopods live at crushing depths of the ocean which can also go about five years without eating. That last part gets even stranger: they can do that because they stole genes from microbes.

Link: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00571-4

#DeepSea #Isopods #Ocean #Science

Giant, deep-sea roly-polies steal a #gene to endure starvation
The football-sized #crustaceans feast when they can, then slow their #metabolism to a crawl
These #Isopods are armored, oblong crustaceans. Long ago, the creatures stole a gene from a bacterium and welded it into their own set of DNA. This may help the crustaceans tolerate extremely long periods without food in the frigid, abyssal desert.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/big-deep-roly-polies-endure-starvation
https://archive.ph/LWdMd

Deep-sea supergiant #isopods last years without food by using a two-part survival system
By combining multi-omics analyses with functional assays, the Chinese researchers discovered that #deepsea isopods have a dual survival strategy to cope with nutrient-poor (oligotrophic) conditions: an enlarged stomach that can store large amounts of food and an extremely low basal metabolic rate (BMR).The stomach of deep-sea isopods occupies about two-thirds of their entire body.
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-deep-sea-supergiant-isopods-years.html

💁🏻‍♀️ ICYMI: 🦐🦘 Roly polies are terrestrial #crustaceans that evolved from marine-dwelling ancestors.

They share a specific trait with #kangaroos because both carry their young in a brood pouch. Female pill bugs carry their #eggs and newly-hatched young in a special pouch called a marsupium.

👉 Learn more: https://seethis.tv/post/roly-poly-pillbug-marsupium-video

#animals #babies #birth #bugs #detritivores #mating #nature #parenting #insects #marsupials #isopods #evolution #science #wildlife #entomology #zoology #ecosystem #tksst #video

🦐🦘 Roly polies are terrestrial #crustaceans that evolved from marine-dwelling ancestors.

They share a specific trait with #kangaroos because both carry their young in a brood pouch. Female pill bugs carry their #eggs and newly-hatched young in a special pouch called a marsupium.

👉 Learn more: https://seethis.tv/post/roly-poly-pillbug-marsupium-video

#animals #babies #birth #bugs #detritivores #mating #nature #parenting #insects #marsupials #isopods #evolution #science #wildlife #entomology #zoology #ecosystem #tksst #video

Ah yes, the riveting saga of #isopods globe-trotting from #Madagascar to #Montenegro 🌍🦐. Who knew these unassuming #crustaceans had a more robust #travel itinerary than even the most pretentious Instagram influencer? If only booking a vacation were as simple as listing continents and calling it a "site" 🤦‍♂️.
https://isopod.site/ #adventure #HackerNews #ngated

Antipredatory strategies of terrestrial isopods

Colourful species of terrestrial #isopods: A #Armadillidium werneri Strouhal, 1927 B #Porcellio duboscqui Paulian de Félice, 1941 C Armadillidium gestroi Tua, 1900 D Porcellio haasi Arcangeli, 1925 E "Merulanella" sp. 1 from Thailand F " #Merulanella" sp. 2 from Thailand (photographs Adrián Purkart).

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Colourful-species-of-terrestrial-isopods-A-Armadillidium-werneri-Strouhal-1927-B_fig2_360699025