Nature
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Animals and their offspring can either look like copy and paste versions, or have radically different appearances from each other. While clearing up some debris on the seafloor, NOAA got more than they bargained for with an adorable king crab baby hitchhiker.
While working in the Gulf of Mexico during the summer in 2024, the team was busy collecting “samples of mesophotic and deep-sea coral species for lab rearing and propagation,” NOAA Fisheries explained on their Instagram account, where they posted a video of the crab.
On August 6, 2024, the team collected a plastic rubbish bag from the seafloor at a depth of 1,060 meters (3,477 feet) and accidentally collected this adorable tiny crab along with it. In the comments on their post, NOAA confirmed the tiny spiny juvenile to be a king crab (Neolithodes agassizii). In the video, one of the team can be heard exclaiming, “Oh my goodness, wow!” in the background.
According to a 2023 study, adult king crabs are typically only found between 640 meters (2,099 feet) and 2,700 meters (8,858 feet) in depth in the Atlantic Ocean. They have a pear-shaped body or carapace that is covered in many spines, which even extend onto their legs. They are a mysterious species with little known about their lives and questions around their distribution.
Other deep-sea mysteries that have been revealed recently include a disco worm flashing its way across the seabed, seals checking out some good vibrations, and a roughskin dogfish caught on camera for the first time in the Caribbean Sea. In other crab news, a new hermit crabs species has been discovered: meet Strawberry Claws.
The newfound spiny little crab has already taken the internet by storm, with fans even creating their own artwork in appreciation of the tiny crab's style.
