Rare glass case with a giant bathynome (Bathynomus... - Lot 141 - Euvrard & Fabre

Lot 141
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Estimation :
1000 - 1200 EUR
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Result : 1 280EUR
Rare glass case with a giant bathynome (Bathynomus... - Lot 141 - Euvrard & Fabre
Rare glass case with a giant bathynome (Bathynomus giganteus) The giant bathynome (marine isopod) is a case of abyssal gigantism Dim : 43 x 30 x 18 cm In December 1878, during a scientific expedition aboard the British ship HMS Challenger near Dry Tortugas Island in the Gulf of Mexico, a young male Bathynomus giganteus measuring 26cm long and 9.5cm wide was captured. This specimen was placed in the hands of the French zoologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards who published a brief description in 1879. In 1891, the first female specimens were also captured, but it was not until 1902 that Alphonse Milne-Edwards and Louis Eugène Bouvier finally proposed a complete anatomical study of the species. Its appearance and its unusual size caused a lot of ink to flow in the popular works of the time. This discovery is indeed exceptional, not only for scientists, but also for the general public. The main reason being that, at the time, it went against the idea, then widespread, that the depths of the ocean were azoic, i.e. containing no trace of life, which some scientists, such as Charles Wyville Thomson, tried hard to refute. In 1991, Mexican researchers Patricia Briones-Fourzán and Enrique Lozano-Alvarez published a study on the biology and ecology of this species after conducting five expeditions around the Yucatán Peninsula.
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