Can You Eat A Giant Isopod
Giant isopod can be eaten, but with some preparation. You need to know that they are longer than your average isopods, and are scavengers so make sure to clean them thoroughly before cooking or eating them. If you are going to eat them, make sure to cook them over high heat until a mushy mess.
The Giant Isopod can survive long periods without eating, and has been known to survive more than eight weeks without eating in captive conditions. When the giant isopods eat, they gobble it up until they cannot move, according to Dee Anne Auten, Aquarist II at the Aquarium of the Pacific.
While the giant isopods insect-like antennae and terrifying faces may give them the appearance of vicious predators, giant isopods usually scavenge animals that are already dead in order to survive. The giant isopods morphology is similar to their land-dwelling cousins, woodlouses; their bodies are droopy dorsoventrally, protected by a stiff, calcareous exoskeleton composed of overlapping segments. Although they are omnivorous, these isopods are mostly carnivorous, eating dead whales, fish, and squid; they can also hunt slower-moving animals, such as marine cucumbers, sponges, radiolarians, nematodes, and other zoobentho, and possibly live fish.
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Giant isopods have been known to eat dead fish, crabs, clams, urchins, and occasionally smaller isopods. Giant isopods are usually not caught commercially, though a few may be found at an occasional beachside restaurant in northern Taiwan, where they are cooked and served with rice. Isopods are typically found in wet environments, such as compost piles, dung heaps, and decaying logs. Isopods like the pillbugs and the sowbugs are usually found beneath logs, rocks, compost heaps, and leaf litter.
Isopods are useful for the environment because they eat decomposing organic material, like dead animals and plants. This means that they use a special structure in their bodies called a filter organ to pull particles out of water. Rather than being presented as a treat, land-based isopods are more a common nuisance, if you exclude them from your yard areas. Isopods are not dangerous to humans, though they do have dozens of sharp claws on the underside, Chambers says, and they can be pretty mean, capable of giving you a nasty sting if you pick them up.
| Species | Livings |
| Isopods | May live up to 2,500 metres, or 8,200 feet. |
| One of the Species | Has been found living in 980 feet of shallow water. |
| Fathoms | It was collected at 300 fathoms, about 549 metres beneath the surface of the ocean. |
While their Isopods really do spend the majority of their time rolling around the ocean floor, they are able to swim — vertically, straight-up, even upside-down. Others are fry, but still resemble very closely the gigantic, armored Woodlouse that sits atop your dish. Those are the ones my Japanese friends called Ogusokumushi, literally meaning Giant Armoured Bug, which is even cooler than their wacky Latin name, Bathynomus doederleini. Those right there my friend mine are deep-fried armoured Isopods, just waiting for you to gnaw those crispy exoskeletons.
Another example of the phenomenon called deep-sea gigantism that you may know about is giant squid, which grows up to almost 60 feet long in the deep sea. The cause for the larger isopods is explained by deep-sea gigantism, a phenomenon where living things tend to get bigger the farther they are from the oceans surface. Because light in the deep sea is extremely dim, giant isopods evolved larger antennae that helped giant isopods sense their way as they crawled across the seafloor. The giant isopod is a hungry sea creature, capable of eating a whole whale by itself — provided that the whale is not still alive.
While a giant isopod might look like an unsettlingly large insect or dangerous undersea alien, it is actually a crustacean found in deep water, and plays a vital role in keeping the ocean floor clear. Looking like it is straight out of a bad sci-fi movie, a giant isopod is undoubtedly one of the weirdest creatures found in the deep sea. The gigantic isopods immense size is the result of a phenomenon known as deep-sea gigantism, or abyssal gigantism, which is the tendency for deep-sea animals to grow much larger than similar species found in shallower waters.
Isopods may live up to 2,500 metres, or 8,200 feet, beneath the waters surface, but one species has been found living in 980 feet of shallow water. Food is extremely scarce in these deep waters, so the giant Isopods feed on anything that happens to drop down from above, like carcasses of dead whales, fish, squid, crabs, and shrimp. It was collected at 300 fathoms, about 549 metres beneath the surface of the ocean, but The Giant Isopod has been known to venture even further down.
Interestingly, reports exist that the isopods go an incredible amount of time, as much as five years, without eating. One gigantic isopod in Japan went five years without eating a single bite of food, then died earlier this year. At the Aquarium of the Pacific, a keeper reported their isopods ate just a couple times per year; one only had two meals one year.
When predators actually come close, an isopod raises its legs high into the air, trying to look as big and dangerous as possible. If this does not work, their isopod may roll itself back like a pillbug, only showing the hard outer shell. Running a rolling pin across an isopod may help soften an already rigid isopods body.
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Make sure you slice the isopods on a cutting board so that any juices do not get onto your desk or onto your other food. Using a sharp knife in one hand and a clean, dry cloth in the other, cut into the isopod, slightly down the middle. To prepare, you will need to put the isopods on the cutting board and extract the juices, cutting off the isopods head, and making several cuts in the body of the isopod.
Takaya Moritaki, at The Aquarium, says she has tried all she can think of to make these finicky giant isopods, caught off the Gulf of Mexico, edible. A TV celebrity came on board Kazutaka Hasegawas boat a few years ago to do an interview, saw an isopod, and asked whether it was edible.
Do people eat sea isopods?
The majority of the enormous isopods that fishers catch are just bycatch. Giant isopods appear primarily consumed in Japan and other Asian nations, yet even in those regions, it is still a rare and unusual cuisine.
Do giant isopods taste good?
Giant marine isopods are edible and taste extremely good, with their taste being similar to that of a chicken. Once roasted and fried, they are flavorful and crunchy and taste just like shrimp and crab. If you can eat a lobster, then you can certainly eat a giant isopod.
Are giant isopods poisonous to consume?
Giant marine isopods are not harmful to consume, even though they have dozens of sharp claws on their underside. It is advised that you remain careful when dealing with isopods as they can be quite vicious and are capable of giving a nasty nip if you mishandle them.