Farming Deep Sea Crab Discovered

Some animals are known to ‘farm’, the most well-known example probably being ants tending their fungus gardens, or aphid herds. Now, a recent article in PLoS ONE describes a new species of deep sea crab that ‘farms’ bacteria on its claws. The crab, named Kiwa puravida (see figure 1), is only the second species in the ‘Yeti crab’ family, who earn their names due to their hairy appearance.    Figure 1: The male holotype (the specimen used to describe a new species) of K. puravida. (A) The dorsal carapace (top view), (B) Side view, and (C) Sternal carapace (bottom view). The scale bar is 10mm.(Source: Thurber, Jones and Schnabel, 2011)    read more

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