Symbion

Symbion is the name of a genus of aquatic animals, less than ½ mm wide, found living attached to the bodies of cold-water lobsters. They have sac-like bodies, and three distinctly different forms in different parts of their two-stage life-cycle. They appear so different from other animals that they were assigned their own, new phylum Cycliophora shortly after they were discovered in 1995. This was the first new phylum of multicelled organism to be discovered since the Loricifera in 1983.

Taxonomy

Symbion was discovered in 1995 by Reinhardt Kristensen and Peter Funch on the mouthparts of the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus), and other, related, species have since been discovered on:

The genus is so named because of its commensal relationship with the lobster (a form of symbiosis) – it feeds on the leftovers from the lobster's own meals.

Kasson Crooker

Kasson Crooker is an American electronic musician, composer, and the artist behind Symbion Project, his solo moniker. His past bands are Freezepop, Splashdown, Larkspur, and Sirensong. DJ HMX, Komputer Kontroller, and Cosmonaut Zero were fake alias bands used only for the videogame FreQuency and Amplitude.

In September 2009, he retired from the synthpop group Freezepop, of which he was a founding member. While in the band he went by various aliases, starting as "The Duke of Candied Apples," then briefly being known as "The Duke of Belgian Waffles," and finally "The Duke of Pannenkoeken." His main solo project is Symbion Project, with five releases, the "Red" album, released in 1998, "Immortal Game," released in 2003, "Wound Up by God or the Devil" released in December 2006, "Misery in Soliloquy" released in October 2009, and "CONTRAPASSO" released in November 2011.

His other past bands include the dreampop band Sirensong and the more well-known Splashdown, whose albums include "Stars and Garters", the "Halfworld" EP, the "Redshift" EP, and the unreleased full-length albums "Blueshift" (which was completed for but never released by Capitol Records) and "Possibilities" (an album of remixes and demos).