New species alert: Scientists discover giant deep-sea isopod family in Gulf of Mexico

About 1 million species of animals live in the ocean. They should make room for one more: a nearly foot-long yellow isopod that thrives at the bottom of the sea.

Identified as Bathonymus yucatanensis, the newly discovered species joins the nearly 20 living Bathonymus species. 

A group of Taiwanese, Japanese and Australians researchers discovered the new species in the Gulf of Mexico and published its findings Tuesday in the Journal of Natural History.

The family of giant isopods – which are related to crabs, shrimp and lobsters – continues to grow with the new species, also referred to as B. yucatanensis. 

What are isopods?

Isopods are crustaceans: aquatic animals with several limbs and antennae all attached to one body. Although isopods range widely in size, the new species is about 26 centimeters long and about 2,500% larger than the average woodlouse.

With 11 spines, B. yucatanensis is not your typical sea animal.

The latest discovery is in low demand for fisheries in Taiwan and Japan, researchers said. The Bathonymus family is mostly common in tropical and temperate deep-sea areas. 

Only two Bathonymus species have been recorded in Taiwan to date: in 1894 and 1972. Now B. yucatanensis joins that list.

Its unique body proportions and color distinguished the species from others when it was collected off the Yucatán Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico, researcher said.

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A case of mistaken identity

Although the species was just discovered, it had been  mistaken as another Bathonymus species, B. giganteus. 

Researchers conducted a superficial examination, using the number of unique spines, to originally identify the B. giganteus species. But that examination could easily result in specimens of B. yucatanensis being misidentified as B. giganteus, researchers said.

The species’ comparison of length, color, spines and limbs led researchers to identify B. yucatanensis as a separate species. B. yucatanensis' body is more slender and shorter than B. giganteus.

“We found that specimens of Bathynomus from off the Yucatán Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico were not B. giganteus as expected, leading us to describe them as B. yucatanensis,” researchers said.

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2 species may have had a common ancestor

But the similarities between the species led researchers to consider B. giganteus the species closest to B. yucatanensis, noting that the two species may have had a common ancestor.

There could be more undiscovered Bathynomus species in the tropical western Atlantic area, researchers said, noting that such revelations are crucial to the fishing industry.

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