A CRAB nicknamed ‘The Hoff’ because it has a hairy chest that reminded scientists of the US actor David Hasselhoff is among a number of new aquatic species discovered living around volcanic vents on the floor of the Southern Ocean near South Georgia.
The video below was filmed at a depth of 2,400m on the East Scotia Ridge by researchers using the robot submersible Isis. It found a suite of creatures surviving on energy derived from the vents, where temperatures reach up to 382C.
Animals living there include a pale octopus, barnacles, sea stars and crinoids. But the highlight was a new species of yeti crab.
Professor Alex Rogers of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology told the Daily Mirror: “The yeti crab was first described in 2005 in the South Pacific. It was called the yeti crab because it had very hairy limbs and hairy claws.
“Our yeti crabs had hairy chests. There was a suggestion on the ship we should call them Hasselhoff crabs. It was a tremendous animal. It was about 15 to 16 centimetres long. And they occur in huge numbers around these vents with densities of up to 600 per square metre.
“They literally occur in heaps and they look quite sinister because from a distance with their very pale white colour they almost look like a big pile of skulls on the seabed.”
But the scientists were also surprised by what they did not find near the geothermal vents. Animals such as tubeworms, vent mussels and vent crabs which are found in vents in other oceans were absent from the East Scotia Ridge vents.
