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Creature from the Black Depths

An isopod (Bathynomus giganteus) from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico was caught and carried to the deck of the research vessel Atlantis in the science basket of the Alvin submersible, following a dive in May 2006. “Chuck Fisher (Penn State University) told me that if I died in the sea, this guy’s relatives would finish off the leftovers on my way to the seafloor,” joked Anton Zafereo, an electronics technician in the Alvin group. “We were more concerned that it wasn’t really dead, and it would escape in the night to gorge itself on human brains.”(Photo by Anton Zafereo, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)