Unidan, AKA Ben Eisenkop, is an ecosystem ecologist who first rose to fame (infamy?) on Reddit by popping up in posts across the site, answering any queries and concepts pertaining to biology and ecology. Eisenkop will be a columnist for Upvoted, where he’ll be spotlighting a new creature every week.

While at first glance, it may seem like this is some kind of insect that’s been hit with a 1950s movie monster growth-ray, it is, in fact, a completely normal deep sea giant isopod!

Isopods are familiar to many people through their terrestrial equivalents which many folks know was roly-polies, pill bugs, sowbugs, or woodlice. These animals live their life harmlessly in many of our back yards, living under fallen logs and in the forest’s leaf litter. Surprisingly, isopods aren’t actually insects at all, they’re actually a type of crustacean! This means that they’re much closer to shrimp and lobsters than they are your average beetle or centipede.

Deep sea giant isopods, which consist of about twenty species in the genus Bathynomus live in the world’s oceans, scavenging scraps of flesh off of dead fish, squid, and even whales that sink to the ocean floor. Occasionally, they will even grab live prey!

In this video by researchers at Carleton University and the Cape Eleuthera Institute, you can watch these deep sea giant isopods as they feed on a research trap:

To me, the deep sea giant isopods resemble Kabuto from Pokémon, which is how I often describe it to my students. However, this might not be as scientifically useful as I’d like. Perhaps a better description is necessary for such a striking animal, but hey, for me, the bizarreness of these gigantic crustaceans speaks for themselves.

In the above photo, you can see the incredibly reflective eyes that these deep sea giant isopods possess. While their vision is actually a somewhat lesser sense in favor of their sensitive antennae, the reflective quality of their eyes gives them somewhat enhanced night vision, analogous to the tapetum lucidum which aids the night vision (and provides the creepy night eye-shine) of animals like cats, dogs, and raccoons.

All in all, these deep sea scavengers are some of the weirdest things that are likely to devour you on the sea floor!