Resembling a massive roly-poly or pill bug, the giant isopod (Bathynomus giganteus) dwells in the cold, dark depths of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Growing up to 16 inches long, these ...

The deep sea is one of the most enigmatic and unexplored regions on Earth, a realm of perpetual darkness and immense pressure. Yet, it teems with life forms that defy our conventional understanding of ...

A warning to readers who don’t have a fear of the deep ocean: this story might soon change that. Back in 2019, a group of researchers who wanted to stir excitement down in the murky recesses of the ...

The gulper eel ( Saccopharynx lavenbergi), also called a pelican eel, is roughly a meter of tail and mouth. This unusual fish, the only species in the genus Eurypharynx, slinks through the water as ...

Legend has it that physicist Ernest Rutherford once dismissed all sciences other than physics as mere "stamp collecting." (Whether he actually said it is a matter of some debate.) But we now live in ...

This is the third supergiant isopod species discovered in the South China Sea since 2017, researchers said. Photo by Huang M-C, Kawai T (2025) At a fishing port in Taiwan, researchers bought four ...

At a fishing port in Taiwan, researchers bought four giant crustaceans hauled in as bycatch by a trawling vessel in the South China Sea. The deep-sea dwellers, resembling supersized woodlice, were ...

This media is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's ...