What the hell is this giant bug?

A Taiwanese friend emailed me this picture. Can anyone tell me if this is real and if so, what the hell this bug is? The writing on the box is either Traditional Chinese or Japanese, indicating it was possibly taken in Taiwan or Japan (Mainland China uses Simplified Chinese characters).



Looks like something out of Starship Troopers...Would you like to know more?


Just out of interest, the email also included these:






The last one there looks a little like a Photoshop fake, but it's a very good one if it is.

[edit on 11-7-2005 by John bull 1]

It looks Oceanic. Like a Balmain Bug or something....relative of the Lobster or other crustacean?

i think it looks like some sort of sea creature. sone sort of realitive of lobsters and such i would think. especialy if it was with the other pictures.

looks like some sort of sea lobster or something very similar to it?

The first is a sea creature that I think is pretty common, the last picture is a horseshoe crab that are very common off the Atlantic coast of the United States but it looks like it has been edited to make it look much larger than normal.

[edit on 7/8/2005 by djohnsto77]

I'll ask at work tomorrow if anyone recognizes this creature (I work at a seafood supplier, so if it is a sea creature the phd's might know what it is).

There are lots of people from Taiwan there too, so they might recognize the thing, and have recipes, it is probably good eating.

The "Water Bug" looks like one of those rolly-polly bugs. I'm not entirely sure but I think there was a prehistoric Rolly-Polly bugs that lived in water that was also particularly large. I'm really not sure but I'll have to check. I'm somewhat(so if I'm wrong don't be angry) of an expert on giant squid. The last two photos are either fake or the Squids aren't full grown. The first pic is probably real considering the size of the squid and that the eyes of rotten out. I've seen Horseshoe Crabs on my families vacation. They are very common. I've never seen one that big.
"I once caught a fish, this big!" *holds up hands*

The horseshoe crab one is a fake, it was discussed on here (could have been cryptozoology.com maybe, anyway) a while ago.

The Giant Bug looks like the Giant Isopods... Nothing uncommon about them...

Here's a link with a pic and a description:
Giant Isopods

And
Giant Isopods 2

And an interesting article comparing these bugs to Horseshoe crabs (the bottom pic posted by Wecomeinpeace:
Living Trilobite

Uhm... Their scientific name is Bathynomus giganteus ... Anyone disagree?

I love the eyes on this one:

external image

Looks very "gray" alien...

The first two photos are of an Isopod, thought to be a modern relative of the trilobite. These things commonly grow to 16 inches but have been recorded in excess of 2 feet!

The next 3 photos are of squid. The first of the three is the Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni or giant squid. The second is a photoshopped fake and the third is of regular squid but due to the photography technique they appear to be much larger than they really are.

Finally the third pic is a photoshopped fake of a horseshoe crab but I find it nearly impossible to believe that one could ever get that large.

no idea... But it's huge...

looks like a giant headlouse to me lol

That first one really freaks me out if it isnt a model or something. It looks like these things we call sand crabs here. At the ocean, when a wave breaks and washes up on the sand, you can see all of these little bubbles in the sand popping up, its these sand crabs digging into the sand. But the ones I am talking about are only an inch or two long. I wouldnt doubt though, after looking at the links, that it is a giant isopod.

That beach with all the dead giant squid washed up looks scary. If that was my beach I would definitely think twice about going for a swim on that day!

If that horsshoe crab is real thats amazing but id doubt it even though the ripples seem to move with the size of the crab and an aerial picture like that would be hard to actually make it look bigger through camra tricks it would have to be photoshopped...

Me and y friends when i lived i n Rhode island used to kill horsshoe crabs with rocks then through them around it was really enteraining...

When looking for Photoshop fakes, the best give-away is usually the lighting and shadows, since they are the hardest to estimate and recreate.

The shadow around the squid's closest tentacle on this one is all wrong, as is the intensity of light on the top of them. Also, if the squid were this large, the head would be so heavy as to flatten out more like in the first squid photo. The shape is consistent with a much lighter squid on a flat surface and so it's probably a chop job of a small squid enlarged.



This photo also has shadow issues. There is a shadow of the lady and the bamboo pole across the water, but if you look to her "south", you can see the real, original shadow.
[edit] Correction, one shadow is on the bottom under water, the other is the shadow cast on the water surface. But then again, with the angle of the sun, her hand and body shouldn't cast a shadow on the water surface. Hmm...still don't know about this one.



kozmo picked this one well. Look at the size of the grains of sand on the left squid and you'll get a better idea of the scale.


[edit on 2005/7/8 by wecomeinpeace]

heh heh heh
I still live in RI....we did the same thing...those lil bastards HURT!
I remember seeing some huge ones when I was a kid at Scarboro beach.
I haven't seen any these days....we must have scared em all away..lol

LOL thats great... i used to live in narragansett like a block away from the beach we just like smash the crap out of them...

Such things aren't as whacky as you might think. Here's an AP story I cut and pasted for you.:

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) _ Hundreds of giant squid are washing up on Orange County beaches, creating a scene more akin to ``20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'' than "The O.C.''

The bug-eyed sea creatures, believed to be Humboldt squid, normally reside in deep water and only come to the surface at night. Why approximately 500 of them began washing up on the sands of Laguna Beach and Newport Beach on Tuesday isn't clear.

Authorities said the squid -- the biggest weighing 17 pounds -- might have been pursuing bait fish and gotten too close to shore, or the tides might simply have carried them in.

"I have heard of this happening before, but it's not a common occurrence,'' lifeguard Capt. Eric Bauer of the Newport Beach Fire Department said Wednesday.

Authorities plan to remove the squid in the next couple of days and will give at least a couple to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History for research.

In the meantime, beachgoers were advised not to eat or even touch them. "They probably have bacteria on them at this point,'' Bauer said.

END

Now, I'd say that if the biggest of these is 17 lbs., the ones appearing in the above photos are probably faked...BUT...ya never know! I understand the Smithsonian used to have a 45 footer on display.


[edit on 8-7-2005 by Toelint]

The food tech from my work saw the photo, and said they are good eating. They are related to crayfish, only saltwater. This is an extremely big one, they are usually about 8" long.

He said in Thailand they are sometimes eaten raw with chili and lime, I seriously thought he was gonna drool. He also said you can cook them like a lobster, cut the innards out, and have a good meal. One this big would be really expensive in Thailand.

Not too crypto, but just a big version of a normal Asian bug.