![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/people_218\/3007991b6bd24248caf142b1e396c9b2.jpg\"\/)
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Two researchers displaying a museum drawer containing preserved specimens one of which is a large isopod
Credit: University of T\u00fcbingen<\/p>\n
K\u00e4stle made the discovery alongside Dr. Ingmar Werneburg, curator of the University of T\u00fcbingen’s Paleontological Collection in Germany. The pair named the new species Bathynomus tuebingoborikensis, combining the name of their university town with Bor\u00edken, the Indigenous Ta\u00edno name for Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
The creature had been part of the university’s collection since the 1980s, when paleontologist Dolf Seilacher acquired it at a research station in Puerto Rico and brought it back to Germany for educational purposes.<\/p>\n
Decades later, K\u00e4stle and Werneburg took a closer look at the dried specimen using modern imaging technology. After comparing its anatomy with other giant isopods, they determined that it belonged to a previously unknown species.<\/p>\n
Giant isopods are crustaceans that live deep beneath the ocean’s surface and look like enormous versions of pill bugs, also known as roly-polies.<\/p>\n
Their bodies are covered in hard, segmented shells, and some can grow up to 20 inches long. They have been found at depths reaching approximately 8,200 feet.<\/p>\n
The newly identified species is particularly large, but its size isn’t the only thing that makes it interesting.<\/p>\n
Researchers found that it is closely related to another giant isopod species discovered off Mexico’s Yucat\u00e1n Peninsula. That connection is helping scientists better understand where these creatures came from and how they spread across the world’s oceans.<\/p>\n
According to the study, giant isopods likely originated in what is now the Gulf of Mexico more than 15 million years ago.<\/p>\n
![\"Specimen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/people_218\/1c5414cbf8661437b4b5af895b0b2aee.jpg\"\/)
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Specimen of a rediscovered large isopod dorsal view
Credit: University of T\u00fcbingen<\/p>\n
“At that time, the Isthmus of Panama was open, leaving a strait between North and South America, and the marine animals were able to spread westward, initially as far as Japan,” Werneburg said.<\/p>\n
Over millions of years, the creatures spread into other oceans, with some evolving to become much larger than their relatives.<\/p>\n
Researchers believe a particularly enormous group emerged around 5.3 million years ago, as Earth’s climate cooled, before spreading from Australia through Antarctic waters toward South and Central America.<\/p>\n