The Search for Freshwater Aquatic Isopods: Lirceus Brachyurus

Описание: To understand freshwater aquatic isopods better, I undertook a journey over several months to find a specific species of isopod I had only read about in papers; Lirceus Brachyurus.

This video has been a long time in the making (mostly because of how slow I get these done) and is the result of a year or so of effort. The footage spans a pretty wide time period, and there were lots of challenges along the way.

As the nature of looking for isopods is pretty hands-on, I didn’t film a lot of this myself. So file your complaints of shaky footage to the people around me foolish enough to chase aquatic crustaceans with me (of which I am very grateful).

This is more of a story about how I found these isopods, and less of a species spotlight. In the future, when I actually know more about some of these guys, I plan on doing more spotlights on specific species and all the fun facts about them.

As usual, I am not formally educated on any of this so take everything with a grain of salt. I’m also not legally responsible for the mispronunciation of probably EVERYTHING.

That being said, I will include some sources below. I like the idea of being wrong in these videos because it seems the only time experts on niche topics like this come out is to tell someone they are wrong. Aquatic isopod experts have been a little MIA. I haven’t put 100% of my energy into it, but have sent quite a few answered emails/hit some dead ends.

If you’re an expert on these guys, please let me know! Would love to talk to ya for an educational video or just to learn more offline. Either way, hope my fellow #isopodagenda friends enjoy this video and get some useful information and data points out of it.

Here’s links to some Vendors that sell Aquatic Isopods in the U.S. (Captain’s Critters / Aquapods LLC being my favorite but I’m biased cuz they my pals):

https://www.captainscritters.com/ (Captain’s Critters)
https://www.ebay.com/str/pintoaquatics (Aquapods LLC)
https://tgoeshrimp.com/ (Garden of Eder)
https://www.phillipsfishworks.com/ (Phillips Fish Works)

Music is by me.

Here’s some sources:



Special Publication Number 19
Groundwater Isopods of Virginia (Isopoda: Asellidae And Cirolanidae)
Julian J. Lewis, Salisa L. Lewis, William Orndorff, Zenah Orndorff, Florian Malard, Lara Konecny-Dupré, Nathanaëlle Saclier, Christophe Douady
https://www.vmnh.net/research-collect...

Freshwater Isopods of the Genus Lirceus from Caves and Springs of the Interior Highlands, USA, with Description of Three New Species (Isopoda: Asellidae)
Julian J. Lewis and Salisa L. Lewis​​
https://caves.org/journal-of-cave-and...

Freshwater Isopods (Asellidae) of North America
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/i...

The Freshwater Isopods of the Genus Lirceus (Asellota, Asellidae)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2422012