Video: A Yeti Crab That Grows Its Bacterial Meals on Its Own Body
Kiwa puravida Shane Ahyong on Wikimedia Commons A species of deep sea crab, named as more things should be after the Himalayan snow monster, grows its own food...on its body. The crab, part farmer and part farm, raises cultures of extremophile bacteria and harvests its meals off of its claws. The yeti crab is named for the bristly, hairy claws where it cultivates gardens of symbiotic bacteria. The crabs live near methane seeps in the deep ocean off the coast of Costa Rica, where methane and hydrogen sulfide "belches" from cracks on the ocean floor. The bacteria derive energy from the methane seeps, and the crabs eat the bacteria. The hosts tend their bacterial gardens by waving their claws, stirring up the water and bathing the bacteria in fresh, oxygen- and hydrogen-sulfide-rich water. The crab harvests its food using comb-like mouthparts. The crab was identified by Andrew Thurber, a marine ecologist at...