The head of Bathynomus vaderi, a newly described species of giant isopod found in Southeast Asian waters Nguyen Thanh SonMove aside, lobstera newly described giant isopod from Vietnam is now a seafood delicacy, and it has a cool name to go along with this status: Bathynomus vaderi, in homage to Darth Vader. A team of scientists named the crustacean for the dark depths of the ocean it inhabits, as well as its head, which shares a similar shape with the Star Wars characters iconic helmet. The enormous critter was described in a study published in the journal ZooKeys this month.I am the biggest Star Wars fan in the team, as its my vintage. The first movie was in 1977, in my youth, and it was cool, study co-author Peter Ng, a carcinologist, or crustacean researcher, at the National University of Singapore, tells New Scientists James Woodford. But we all agree that the face of Bathynomus looks so much like Darth Vader that it just had to be named after the Sith Lord.Though the species is newly described by the scientific community, locals in Vietnam previously called it (and other similar creatures) b bin, Vietnamese for sea bugs. Bathynomus, however, are not even close to being bug-sized. The genus Bathynomus refers to a group of giant isopodsodd-looking crustaceans with seven pairs of legsthat can grow approximately one foot long.Instead of running away at the sight of these behemoths, people in Vietnam have recently begun enjoying sea bugs as a seafood delicacy, since about 2017, per the paper. The crustaceans are caught from deep waters via trawling, then transported alive in ice boxes to restaurants for sale. Once treated as accidental bycatch when fishing, the animalsdriven in part by media exposureare now considered by some to rival the culinary fineness of lobster, according to a statement.In 2022, the researchers acquired four giant isopods from fishmongers in the Vietnamese city of Quy Nhn. Through comparisons to other isopods and analysis of DNA, they realized they were dealing with a species that had never been officially described. Study co-author Conni Sidabalok examinesBathynomus vaderiat Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, Singapore. Rene OngAs if Bathynomus werent big enough in general, Bathynomus vaderi are specifically supergiant isopods that can reach 12.8 inches in length and weigh more than 2.2 pounds. Unlike other supergiants, however, a segment of Bathynomus vaderis back section narrows and curves backward in a unique way.Currently, the species is only known to live near the Spratly Islands, but the researchers suggest it probably also inhabits other regions of the South China Sea.Some experts, however, are raising conservation concerns for these enormous crustaceans: Bathynomus notoriously produce a small number of eggs, which makes them vulnerable to threats such as overfishing, study co-author Conni Sidabalok, a researcher with the National Research and Innovation Agency in Indonesia, tells CNNs Julianna Bragg.These (creatures) dont grow very fast, and if they become a very unusual and sought-after item, we may eat them out of existence, says Lanna Cheng, a marine biologist at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the study, to CNN.The scale of harvesting is a matter for concern. Its a challenge for all deep-sea species we fish, Sidabalok tells New Scientist. We know so little about their biology, so we need more studies to evaluate how best to conserve and manage this resource.The researchers hope their study serves as a call to further investigate deep-sea biodiversity in the face of encroaching human activities like industrial fishing and offshore drilling. According to the statement, that a species as large as this could have stayed hidden for so long reminds us just how much work we still need to do to find out what lives in Southeast Asian waters.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, Cooking, Food, Oceans, Weird Animals