Just before Christmas 1995, a new life form discovered by Danish biologists on the lips of the Norway lobster attracted world-wide media attention. So why did the discovery of S.pandora excite not just the scientific community but attract media attention world-wide? For two main reasons. Firstly, the organism was not discovered in the depths of a rain forest or an oceanic trench, but on the bristles surrounding the mouth of the Norway lobster Nephrops norvegicus which can be caught in the Kattegat Straits, a busy shipping lane between Sweden and Denmark. You’ve probably eaten the Norway lobster - as scampi and chips! Secondly, when a new animal species is discovered, no matter how unusual, it can normally be classified into a known group of creatures with the same body plan or phylum. Although there are 1.5 million plus known species in the world, they can all be classified into 35 or so phyla. These include the chordates (eg the vertebrates such as man), molluscs (snails) and arthropods (jointed limbed e.g. insects). However, S.pandora was so unusual that it could not be classified into any of the existing phyla, and a new one was suggested called Cycliophora. How was it’s name derived? Symbion is derived from the Greek syn ‘(together) with’ and bios ‘living’, which refers to the close association the organism has with it’s host. The phylum name Cycliophora is a Greek derivative referring to the circular mouth ring.