You won’t believe what washed up near Hooters! A giant isopod—an ancient, alien-like sea creature—showed up while my buddy was fishing with his sister. This thing looks like it came straight ...

Recent years have seen giant isopods like B. vaderi go from being merely the accidental bycatch of local fishermen to an expensive delicacy elevated above even lobster, the so-called king of seafood.

Newly-discovered giant sea bug resembling Darth Vader isn't as scary as it looks The creature belongs to a genus of giant isopods found in abundance in deep-sea waters, though the size of B ...

Like all giant isopods, of which there are around 20 species, B. Vaderi is a carnivore and prefers feeding on crustaceans, fish, squid, and even whale carcasses.

Researcher Peter Ng examining giant isopods at a seafood market in Hanoi, Vietnam. Nguyen Thanh Son. Ng says the team chose the species’ name because of its resemblance to Darth Vader’s mask, ...

What has 14 legs, lives at the bottom of the sea, and looks like Darth Vader? It's a newly discovered species of supergiant isopod, and should you happen to be in Vietnam sometime soon, you can ...

By early 2023, the team realized that these giant isopods belonged to a species that had not been described by scientists. Bathynomus vaderi is considered a supergiant isopod, reaching about 12.7 ...

Researchers Identified a New ‘Supergiant’ Crustacean With 14 Legs—and They Named It After Darth Vader In recent years, the deep-sea giant isopod has also become a seafood delicacy in Vietnam ...

The creature belongs to a genus of giant isopods found in abundance in deep-sea waters. Referred to by the researchers as a "supergiant," the largest of the specimens weighed more than 2.2 pounds ...

This is the third supergiant isopod species discovered in the South China Sea since 2017, researchers said. Photo by Huang M-C, Kawai T (2025) At a fishing port in Taiwan, researchers bought four ...

This is the third supergiant isopod species discovered in the South China Sea since 2017, researchers said. Photo by Huang M-C, Kawai T (2025) At a fishing port in Taiwan, researchers bought four ...