Hairy crab lounges deep in the pacific.A newly discovered deep-sea creature has the body of a crab--except with long, fluffy, blonde hair covering its legs. It lives some 2,200 meters deep in the southeast Pacific near hydrothermal vents hydrothermal vent, crack along a rift or ridge in the deep ocean floor that spews out water heated to high temperatures by the magma under the earth's crust. Some vents are in areas of seafloor spreading, and in some locations water temperatures above 350°C; (660°F;) have been recorded. The vents' hot springs leach out valuable subsurface minerals and deposit them on the ocean floor., says Joe Jones of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. The hair is so heavily infested with as-yet-unidentified bacteria that Jones and his colleagues speculate that the microbes are metabolizing compounds from the vents and providing energy for the crab. That feeding strategy could explain why the crabs sometimes sit with their legs extending into the warm water leaking near vents. Living off dirty-blonde body hair isn't these crabs' only option. Researchers saw them feast on mussels that the submersible submersible, small, mobile undersea research vessel capable of functioning in the ocean depths. Development of a great variety of submersibles during the later 1950s and 1960s came about as a result of improved technology and in response to a demonstrated need for the capability to visit the ocean depths to make direct observations and measurements, to recover lost equipment, and for possible rescue activity. cracked open when landing. The crabs don't have eyes so it's also possible that the hairs work as sensors. Jones and his colleagues first spotted the 15-centimeter-long species last year when taking the research submersible Alvin down to new lava fields south of Easter Island Easter Island, Span. Isla de Pascua, Polynesian Rapa Nui, remote island (1992 pop. 2,770), 66 sq mi (171 sq km), in the South Pacific, c.2,200 mi (3,540 km) W of Chile, to which it belongs. Of volcanic origin, Easter Island is mostly covered with grasslands and is swept by strong trade winds. The inhabitants are of Polynesian stock. Farming and sheep raising are the principal occupations; wool is the only export.. They collected one sample crab. In the winter issue of Zoosystema, the researchers formally name it Kiwa hirsute hir·sute (hûr  s t , hîr-, h. The crab merits not only a new species and genus but also a new family among the crustaceans crustacean (krŭstā`shən), primarily aquatic arthropod of the subphylum Crustacea. Most of the 44,000 crustacean species are marine, but there are many freshwater forms. called squat lobsters. Because it reminds them of the fabled, hairy abominable snowman abominable snowman or yeti yeti: see abominable snowman. (yĕt`ē), humanlike creature so named because it is associated with the perpetual snow region of the Himalayas. A figure unknown except through tracks ascribed to it and through alleged encounters, it is described as being 6 to 8 ft (1.8 to 2., researchers informally refer to the creature as the Yeti crab.--S.M.
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