A father from the dark side has lent his title to a giant creature from the deep sea, with scientists having named a "sea bug" Bathynomus vaderi.
The bug—which belongs to a group that can reach nearly 13 inches in length and a weight of 2.2 lbs—was studied by an international team from Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam.
Like Star Wars' villainous Darth Vader, the newly described sea bug is pasty white and sports a head, the shape of which resembles the helmet of the Sith Lord's life-support armor.
The discovery marks the first time a sea bug—or "bọ biển"—has been described from the waters around Vietnam; specifically near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
Giant isopods like those of the genus Bathynomus are relatives of the more familiar pill bugs that you might well find in your backyard.
They scuttle around the seafloor in the pitch-black depths of the ocean, scavenging on the remains of fish, crab, sponges and other organic matter that fall down to the deep seafloor.
The discovery of Bathynomus vaderi began when researchers at Hanoi University purchased four giant isopods in Vietnam's Quy Nhơn City back in early 2022.
They sent two of them to National University of Singapore carcinologist (that is, crustacean expert) Peter Ng—who set about trying to identify them with his colleagues.
They eventually determined that they were looking at specimens of an undescribed species whose features distinguished it from known giant sea bugs.
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.
They are targeted by commercial trawlers in various deep-water parts of the South China Sea and off the south-central coast of Vietnam.
And in the last five years, the eerie bugs can be seen being sold alive in many a seafood market in Vietnam's Đà Nẵng City, Hanoi and Hồ Chí Minh City.
According to the researchers, the discovery of a new giant isopod off the Vietnamese coast reveals just how little we know about the denizens of the deep sea.
Increasing our understanding will be vital, they conclude, to protect species like B. vaderi as we increasingly look to exploit the deep sea for food and other resources like oil, gas and minerals.
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Reference
Ng, P. K. L., Sidabalok, C. M., & Nguyen, T. S. (2025). A new species of supergiant Bathynomus A. Milne-Edwards, 1879 (Crustacea, Isopoda, Cirolanidae) from Vietnam, with notes on the taxonomy of Bathynomus jamesi Kou, Chen & Li, 2017. ZooKeys, 1223, 289–310. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1223.139335
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