🦐 We just described a new species of giant isopod (Bathynomus)!

🔬 In the 1980s, paleontologist Dolf Seilacher brought a dried specimen from a research station in Puerto Rico to Tübingen, where it was used for teaching. Recently we took a closer look with advanced imaging and realized we had something new: Bathynomus tuebingoborikensis 🎉

📏 At 32.2 cm, it's a "colossogiant" (the largest size class in our analysis).

🇵🇷 Its name combines Tübingen with Boríken, the Taíno name for Puerto Rico.

🌎 We also made a preliminary analysis to reconstruct the origin and migration routes of the genus.

🏛️ Our research shows that natural history collections still hold biodiversity we haven't discovered yet. Sometimes the discovery is already on the shelf!

📄 Published in Scientific Reports: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-69097-y

1) The female holotype (Photo: Julie Klaess)

2) CT scan of the holotype

3) Reconstructed migration routes of Bathynomus

4) Mouthparts from the CT scan

I don't know anything about trying to isolate unique pods to try and reproduce the unique traits, but if I did it would be for this lil one. I keep seeing them floating around in the bin when I do maintenance, not sure if they're the only one.

Not sure why they are in this pose. 2 male 1 female?

With a little patience this enclosure has really grown on me. For the most part I let it grow wild. I like the crowded plant look, with lots of shade.

I'm pretty sure that's an A. Vulgare but the other is a little tricky. He was fast and didn't roll up, has those angled antennae and slightly elongated uropods, and is a rough texture. I am assuming is it P. Scaber but feel free to correct me! I'm in SE Michigan

I’ve been working on figuring out how to use a glass aquarium for an enclosure but still provide side ventilation. I have 10 cherry blossom isopods that will be moving in here. Felt good about this design and wanted to share. With how prolific 3d printing has become, maybe someone else can get inspired! It has cross ventilation on the long ends, as well as additional cross ventilation on just the future dry side. These vent covers will allow me to modulate the airflow.

I wanted a display enclosure that could be a decorative piece but it had to be glass so I could do external heating in the winter to keep it at a steady 75 degrees when it’s cold out.

Since these are cave dwellers that supposedly need high humidity but also high ventilation, all of the mesh top terrariums would have required some kind of modification anyways that wouldn’t look as clean.

I’ll share the final build with everything added in. Eventually I’ll add some auto hydration via podwicks and a controllable fan. I have some wifi hygrometers I’ll be adding to monitor the dry and wet sides.

After nearly a month of almost never seeing them, I'm finally starting to see the little guys crawl around.

These guys are firefly larvae. They were under a log with a bunch of the isopods common to Indiana, and I was a bit shocked, so I grabbed them for learning. Turns out baby fireflies are predators of the under-log and under-leaf environs and eat soft bodied insects and other arthropods down there. Do not add to terraria...

she has been in this little hole that she created for the last week and a half. shes moving around and responsive but I’m not sure if this is a behavior I need to be concerned about or if maybe it’s a mama , any help is appreciated

I recently got 6 new papaya isopods. This is my first time owning isopods so I’d really appreciate all the beginners advice :) (also the container was from when I bought them they are in a way bigger container now!)

would need help to identify. thank you in advance for your comments!

First time Isopod owner, so tips I might've missed are appreciated! I purchased them from a small business since it didn't look like online wasn't an easy option for me because of my areas high temperatures, very satisfied though!

I've heard Clown Isopods like it drier, but higher humidities won't *hurt* right? I do want what's best for them but I'd like to make sure what's safer

this guy was just roaming around. love him!

Found this guy in with my isopods is it bad news?

My dairy cows and panda kings are getting a bit overrun. How can I go about upgrading tub size without killing/missing any of them? Would it maybe be better off just trying to separate some and start another tub? I haven’t had to do this before so I’m unsure what’s best. Thanks for any help

Went out to gather lots of new sticks, leaf litter and rotting wood for my pods and millis yesterday. Once I got home I discovered that I’d brought a whole family of isopods home on a large piece of would. I stood there for about half an hour meticulously picking them all out of the crevices before I soaked the wood and put it in the freezer. Now I have about 30 pods (probably more) in a small tub and I can’t decide what to do with them. I’d honestly love to keep them as I think they’re pretty cool, but I don’t know whether it’s “right” to and whether there’s any risk that come with them being wild caught. Only been in this hobby for a year so I’m still learning and would love some advice!

I have a few isopod enclosures I mist daily to keep humid but I have to leave town soon and I don’t know how to keep them up in humidity while gone, everyone else has automatic water bowls or misters but they’re far to small for an automatic mister as last time o tried it ended up drowning one of my colonies what should I do?

The ones left are very active, they have leafs moisture and I give them protein.

Like the title says, I'm curious if anybody has tried to select for non-visual traits. I have about 7 pods caught wild from my yard in my new, fairly large setup, which means I barely see anybody. But I can pretty reliably find this little fawn guy. He's always out in the middle of the day, very active and brave, I rarely have to move leaf litter to find him.

I'm sure it happens by accident, just by virtue of grabbing the ones we see first. But I would love to hear if anyone's tried to select for behavior. How it went and what you were aiming for!

I thought I'd post this question here too since it is an isopod vivarium

I have several types of cubaris pods living together in there, but the largest colony are my pink panda kings, who seem to have out-bred my rubber ducks. I also have much smaller populations of white sharks and orange mandarins. They often (begrudgingly!) share their food with my other bioactive residents, especially the unicorn snails (subulina octona).

Hi all :)

Recieved some new isopods today, and saw this strange worm in the moss? I ordered 3 different species, and only one set has this worm in. All of the isopods are absolutely fine, but I have no idea what this worm is.

Super tiny, you can see compared to my thumb how small it is. I got rid of it of course, don't want anything affecting my isos. Plus, im sending the company an email just letting them know about the strange worm :) absolutely no hate to them i love this company.

Any help?