New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered • Hacker News Board

Re: New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered

#21

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #12

rsynnott wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, generally on islands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_gigantism Humans tend to exterminate them.

I think that’s an over generalization. The La Brea tarpit types were extinguished due to climate change. It’s also postulated mammoths and such were also affected by climate change, food availability and hunting. None the less, before humans came on the scene large animals came and went. Of course if they had survived to even antiquity, yes, we’d probably have hunted them to extinction.

Well, sure, there are loads that died out before humans showed up. But of those that existed when we showed up, we have exterminated almost all of them.

> Of course if they had survived to even antiquity, yes, we’d probably have hunted them to extinction.

Often it wasn't even hunting. New Zealand's various giant ground parrots weren't THAT delicious. We introduced invasive species which did the extermination for us, in that case (and many/most bird-y cases, at least).

Re: New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered

#22

Post by dane-pgp » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

progval wrote: post #20

dane-pgp wrote: post #14

> The new giant isopod species was described from two specimens, ... 950 and 1,260 metres, during the South Java Deep Sea Biodiversity Expedition 2018 If you skim-read the article, you might end up with a very different picture in your head.

You missed an important part of the sentence: > collected off the southern coast of West Java in Indonesia, from a depth of between 950 and 1,260 metres the specimens were not 1km long.

You missed an important part of the sentence:

> skim-read

I then went back to read the sentence properly, but thank you for including the missing part for those who didn't read the article.

Re: New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered

#23

Post by progval » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

dane-pgp wrote: post #22

progval wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed an important part of the sentence: > collected off the southern coast of West Java in Indonesia, from a depth of between 950 and 1,260 metres the specimens were not 1km long.

You missed an important part of the sentence: > skim-read I then went back to read the sentence properly, but thank you for including the missing part for those who didn't read the article.

Indeed, my bad. I misunderstood your comment as saying skim-readers might miss that sentence and only see the sizes on pictures.

Re: New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered

#24

Post by ycombonator » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 2:04 AM UTC

C4ne wrote: post #11

Could we leave these animals out in the ocean please? I know that there will be people that want to eat them because it gives them some kind of superpower you‘ve never heard of. But if you look at the year 2020 you may know that wild species can give you wild diseases. Or maybe we just limit interaction with these species only to scientists ghat know how to handle them.

You got downvoted by CCP

Re: New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered

#25

Post by snori74 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #21

mc32 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s an over generalization. The La Brea tarpit types were extinguished due to climate change. It’s also postulated mammoths and such were also affected by climate change, food availability and hunting. None the less, before humans came on the scene large animals came and went. Of course if they had survived to even antiquity, yes, we’d probably have hunted them to extinction.

Well, sure, there are loads that died out before humans showed up. But of those that existed when we showed up, we have exterminated almost all of them. > Of course if they had survived to even antiquity, yes, we’d probably have hunted them to extinction. Often it wasn't even hunting. New Zealand's various giant ground parrots weren't THAT delicious. We introduced invasive species which did the extermination for us,…

Hard to know how you could state this so confidently, snacked on a kakapo recently?

Re: New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered

#26

Post by steve_adams_86 » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 5:38 AM UTC

C4ne wrote: post #11

Could we leave these animals out in the ocean please? I know that there will be people that want to eat them because it gives them some kind of superpower you‘ve never heard of. But if you look at the year 2020 you may know that wild species can give you wild diseases. Or maybe we just limit interaction with these species only to scientists ghat know how to handle them.

I understand the sentiment to a point, but isn’t it essentially impossible to get diseases from deep sea isopods? If we should be exploring any unknown creatures, deep sea creatures seem relatively safe if you are aiming to avoid transmissible diseases.

Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know much about this stuff.

Re: New species of “supergiant” isopod uncovered

#27

Post by ncmncm » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 6:15 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #4

This might be a relative of our pill bugs? But there is probably a lot more evolution between them than between, e.g., horses and sharks. Which, by the way, is also bigger than between bony fish and sharks.

Sorry, wrong direction: sharks and horses are closer than sharks and tuna.