Image credits: @lkcnhm / Instagram.
Named ‘Bathynomus Raksasa’, these deep-sea 14-legged cockroaches can survive without food for days without a problem.
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- Last Updated: July 20, 2020, 12:52 PM IST
The depths of the water bodies are home to some of the rarely or completely unknown creatures of this world.
Back in 2018, during an in-depth survey near the coast of Banten in Western Java in Indonesia, a team of researchers found an extremely rare creature.
Nicknamed as the “deep sea cockroach,” these were massive crustacean, which resembled the iconic character, Darth Vader, from Star Wars, was first spotted by the researchers during the South Java Deep-Sea Biodiversity Expedition.
The discovery was a joint effort by a team from the National University of Singapore and the Research Center for Oceanography, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
Here’s a video:
Well, the 14-legged creature has finally been named officially.
The formal name of this creature is decided to be ‘Bathynomus Raksasa’.
The scientist behind this name, Conni M Sidabalok, Helen PS Wong, and Peter K L Ng, suggested, “The epithet is the Indonesian word “raksasa” for giant, alluding to its enormous size and the significance of the find.”
These creatures can reach up to around 20 inches due to their low level of predation and cold conditions, as compared to other isopods.
They were nicknamed as sea cockroaches for their similar appearance.
Closely related to the marine species family of crabs and shrimp, Bathynomus Raksasa usually lives on the ocean bed and feeds on remains of other dead marine animals.
Just like cockroaches, these giant isopods can also survive without food for days without a problem.
Interestingly, ‘Bathynomus Raksasa’ is also the second-largest isopod species known to researchers to date.
The largest isopod is ‘Bathynomus Giganteus’.