Mike: Alas, no... trilobites bit the big one without leaving any progeny. They had a nice few hundred millions years of living it up, though.
But who knows? Perhaps they'll find something new from one of the deep abysses that'll change the biology books... it worked for coelacanth, after all.
It would be cool as hell if they found a trilobyte wouldn't it?
No, this bug is directly related to what are known as wood lice, or roly polies, or pill bugs. You know, those little gray or black bugs that curl into a ball if you play with them?
Looks to me like the sort of thing religious Moslems and religious Jews are forbidden to eat.
Maybe they know something everybody else doesn't.
There was a comic book once called Fish Police. I forget who wrote the introduction, but he told the story of a friend whose attitude was roughly this: "Look. God took these creatures and hid them on the bottom of the ocean, where you can hardly find them. And then He put them inside rocky cases so you need a hammer to get at the meat. Maybe He's trying to tell you something: don't eat this!"
Martin: The counter argument, though, is that most of those guys are really good tasting. It might even suggest that somebody was keeping all the good stuff for him/herself!
The funny thing is, by the way, that those creatures are basically harmless. Like most highly-armored creatures, they are minor predators at best. These isopods are, like pillbugs, basically scavengers. They have no stingers, no venom, don't move particularly fast, and don't appear to have much of a bite. A lobster would probably be more dangerous.
Creationists like Ham actually have tried to claim that these critters are trilobytes, as it happens, given that isopods look vaguely segmented in the same way. Morphologically though, it isn't even slightly plausible.
Arnold, you're onto something. Pill bugs are related to crabs and lobsters, all of which are sea creatures we don't eat. (We only eat fish with fins and scales.) They're basically underwater bugs, reputedly delicious.
Yours,
Wince
Maybe they know something everybody else doesn't.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
But who knows? Perhaps they'll find something new from one of the deep abysses that'll change the biology books... it worked for coelacanth, after all.
No, this bug is directly related to what are known as wood lice, or roly polies, or pill bugs. You know, those little gray or black bugs that curl into a ball if you play with them?
There was a comic book once called Fish Police. I forget who wrote the introduction, but he told the story of a friend whose attitude was roughly this: "Look. God took these creatures and hid them on the bottom of the ocean, where you can hardly find them. And then He put them inside rocky cases so you need a hammer to get at the meat. Maybe He's trying to tell you something: don't eat this!"