Where can you find them?
The giant isopod is a benthic species that lives on the continental slope. They can be found at depths of between 310 and 2,300 m over a sandy or detrital seabed.
The isopod is a deep-sea species that can be found off Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.
How can you recognise them?
- Isopods look like woodlice and are a brown to purplish-grey colour.
- Their head is topped by two pairs of antennae and their jaws have four pairs of mandibles.
- They are about twenty centimetres long.
Their exoskeleton consists of:
- Jointed segments that form a solid carapace,
- Head fused with the first thoracic segment,
- The first pair of thoracic appendages are called maxillipeds and are used for mastication. Their mouth can cut and swallow large pieces of food.
- Seven pairs of uniform legs, hence the name isopod.
- Five pairs of swimming paddles called pleopods that are used by the females to carry their eggs.
- The telson forms a broad tail shield that has between 12 and 14 terminal spines.
What is distinctive about them?
- They are carnivorous, scavengers and saprophagous, that is to say they eat the detritus that arrives in the form of an organic snowfall on the seabed.
- They can survive for a long time without eating.
- Isopods have been brought up accidentally in fishing nets still alive, unlike other deep-sea species which cannot withstand the decompression.
- The ecology of these deep-sea animals is very poorly known as they are difficult to study in situ.
- This species is increasingly being sought after by fisheries because its flesh is of the same quality as that of crabs and lobsters.
