Dean's World

Giant Pill Bug

Dean

Mmm, yummy:

eek!

This in a story about how The Island Rule also applies to the deep sea.

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Scott Kirwin (mail) (www):

That's one helluva roly-poly.

9.29.2006 5:17pm

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M. Barrette (mail) (www):

That is very disgusting. Hopefully Dean and the other contributors can post a lot this weekend to get that far, far down the page by Monday.

9.29.2006 6:13pm

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Tom Hawkson:

Well, I'm not sure if it's Not Safe For Work, but it's Not Safe For Something.

Yours,
Wince

9.29.2006 6:26pm

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John_B (mail) (www):

Looks like a nice dinner for three. And since it's from the sea, it must be okay for Friday fare!

9.29.2006 8:08pm

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Arnold Harris (mail):

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.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

9.29.2006 11:19pm

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MaryJ:

UUGGHHH!!!!!!!!!

9.29.2006 11:34pm

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Mike (mail):

Is that a relative of a trilobite?

9.29.2006 11:56pm

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John_B (mail) (www):

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.

9.29.2006 11:59pm

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Dean Esmay:

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?

9.30.2006 1:03am

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Martin L. Shoemaker (www):

Arnold,

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!"

9.30.2006 1:23am

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John_B (mail) (www):

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!

9.30.2006 1:29am

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Cybrludite (mail) (www):

Good old fasioned nightmare fuel. At least I don't have to worry about staying awake tonight. Yeesh!

9.30.2006 4:25am

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John_B (mail) (www):

Cybrludite: I guess the moral is to not go to sleep at the bottom of the ocean depths.

9.30.2006 11:47am

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Dean Esmay:

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.

9.30.2006 2:12pm

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Vic Stein (mail):

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.

9.30.2006 5:19pm

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Ronald Coleman (mail) (www):

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.

9.30.2006 10:46pm

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Ymarsakar (www):

Face hugger. If it comes towards me, I'm killing it.

10.1.2006 6:55am

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Ken McCracken (mail) (www):

Oh, you must have found this on Cute Overload!

10.2.2006 12:43am