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Yeti Crab — printable fact sheet
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Yeti Crab
Kiwa hirsuta
Yeti crabs (genus Kiwa) are blind, pale squat lobsters of hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, first described in 2005, and the hair that gives them their name is a farm. Their claws and undersides are covered in dense setae colonised by chemosynthetic bacteria, which oxidise sulf…
Did you know?
- Unlike most crabs, the Yeti Crab is nearly blind and relies heavily on touch and chemical cues to navigate its dark, high-pressure environment.
- Yeti crabs grow bacteria on their own hairy claws and then comb them off and eat them, farming their food on their bodies. One species waves its claws rhythmically over a methane seep, apparently to keep fresh chemicals flowing over its bacterial crop. The Antarctic "Hoff crab" packs onto vent chimneys at over 700 animals per square metre, crammed into the narrow band between scalding vent fluid and lethally cold seawater. They are blind, having lost functional eyes entirely in the permanent darkness of the deep sea.
What I learned
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