Have you seen anything like the above, ever? This crustacean, found in the marine environment off Walpole and Portland, Maine, is not like anything researchers have seen before. Can you assist them with identifying it? (Photo courtesy Casco Bay Estuary Partnership)

Reporter Ann S. Kim noted in The Maine Sunday Telegram on July 31, 2007, specifically about this unknown animal:

A crustacean the size of a grain of rice was among the hundreds of specimens that researchers gathered in recent days from docks and piers from Cape Cod to midcoast Maine.

The tiny crustacean, the marine version of a pill bug, didn’t seem like anything they had seen before in their search for invasive species in the area.

“If I can’t nail it down, I’ll bring in some colleagues,” said James Carlton, director of the Williams-Mystic Program, a maritime studies program in Connecticut. If the animal, which was found in Portland and Walpole, is not known in New England, Carlton said he’ll keep reaching out until he figures out what it is….

Carlton urged the public to report unfamiliar species to scientists or a nature center. Ideally, these surveys would be conducted every year to get a good sense of what’s going on in the coastal zone.

The researchers spent three days last week in Maine, where they collected specimens in Portland, South Portland, Walpole, Boothbay, Camden and Rockland.

The scientists are looking for non-native, invading species, but finding a new animal might be a result of their research, as well.

Does this yellow-and-brown marine sowbug-lookalike remind you of any animal you’ve seen during your shoreline walks, or as pictured in a zoology text?