By Marta SerafinkoJune 19 (Reuters) – A pill bug dwelling under a garden pot curls its body into a tiny armored ball as self-defense. Far below the ocean surface, some of its much larger relatives face a harder problem: how to stay alive when the next meal may not come for years.Those creatures are called deep-sea isopods, a group of crustaceans with flattened and segmented bodies that, as new research reveals, have resolved the dilemma with a multifaceted biological fix.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe realm they inhabit is a cold, dark desert far below the ocean surface where food falls only as rare “snowflakes” of dead organic matter from above, according to crustacean biologist Jianhai Xiang of the Institute of Oceanology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of the authors of the study published in the journal Cell.”It is a world of perpetual night and crushing pressure, yet life finds a way,” Xiang said.Thanks to their unique biology, these creatures can survive more than five years without food. New research indicates that their solution is partly anatomical and partly genetic – a huge stomach and very low metabolism complemented by the work of a gene that helps control bodily energy production.These creatures are bottom-dwelling scavengers with 14 jointed legs and a hard exterior exoskeleton, thriving in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Some are more than half a meter (20 inches) long. Like pill bugs, they too can curl into a ball for protection.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe new findings focus on two species: Bathynomus doederleini, a giant isopod found at about 300 meters (985 feet) below the sea surface, and Bathynomus jamesi, a supergiant isopod found at about 900 meters (2,950 feet) under the surface.”Deep-sea is …
