Comments on: Scientists Need Your Help: Identify This

By: Carpenoctem666

Carpenoctem666 — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:43:25 +0000

It looks to me like a new species of Isopod

By: truthseerguy

truthseerguy — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:04:38 +0000

Looks like a Collembolan to me or a close relative

By: jim carlton

jim carlton — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:41:09 +0000

Hello folks,

As noted in the original news post at the top of this column, this is a marine isopod crustacean. We have since identified it as a juvenile of Idotea phosphorea, a native Atlantic coast species.

- Jim Carlton

By: edsessio

edsessio — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:20:16 +0000

pillbug with dead skin on the sides

By: Alligator

Alligator — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:04:45 +0000

Obviously an Isopod of some sort. There are myriads of such small critters on this planet still waiting to be discovered and cataloged, especially in the oceans. This little thing actually may be fairly common, it might be that no one paid them much attention before or this one simply got stranded in a spot where it doesn’t normally occur. Think coelacanth on a very small scale.

By: smmoulder

smmoulder — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:03:42 +0000

For whatever reason, this reminded me of the bizarre creatures of the Burgess Shale. Here’s a link to the cover of Stephen Jay Gould’s book on the Shale.

There are significant issues with SJG’s interpretations (and at least one of the creatures depicted was drawn upside down), but as a visual reference to similar creatures…

By: Mnynames

Mnynames — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:15:05 +0000

The opening text pretty much pinned it down to Isopod, folks, but that does little to establish species. Morphologically, it certainly looks like the Isopods I used to encounter in my job at the Atlantic City Aquarium, although most were a little bigger than a grain of rice. The colour and patterning is what strikes me as being so different from the ordinary, as all the ones I’ve seen were the colour of bay muck- dark grey.

By: Dragonheart

Dragonheart — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 00:41:21 +0000

@sausage1: yes, you’re probably right, it could be a man in a suit. On the other side the otter-theory sounds real too. We definitely need a sketch of it’s eyes, before we know for certain what it is…

Okay, let’s get serious again… my guess is isopod too. The picture on that site fits the one on this site quite good.

By: Chernobyl

Chernobyl — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:33:01 +0000

It looks like a cross between a sowbug and a centipede.

Whatever it is, it’s cute in its own little bizarre way.

By: sausage1

sausage1 — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:15:41 +0000

Wrong, skeptik. It’s obviously a man dressed in a very small bug suit. Look, see the zipper?