The first species of Yeti Crab from hydrothermal vent systems of the East Scotia Ridge in the Southern Ocean, Antarctica, has been described by a team of British scientists.
The species Kiwa tyleri is named after world-renowned British deep-sea and polar biologist Professor Paul Tyler from the University.
Kiwa tyleri belongs to an enigmatic group of squat lobsters, known as Kiwaidae, that thrive in the hot waters surrounding the geothermally heated hydrothermal vents. It is the dominant species at these sites occurring at extremely high densities, exceeding 700 specimens per square metre.
This Yeti Crab is famous for its body, which is densely covered by bristles – known as setae – and bacteria, giving it a fur-like appearance. Kiwa tyleri’s appearance allows it to harvest the dense bacterial mats, which overgrow the surfaces of vent chimneys, on which it depends on for food from the chemosynthetic bacteria.
Dr Sven Thatje from the University and lead author on the paper, says:
“The Antarctic Yeti Crab is trapped in its warm-water hydrothermal vent site by the cold polar waters of the surrounding deep-sea. The species has adapted to this very limited sized habitat – of a few cubique metres in volume – by living in highly-packed densities and by relying on bacteria they grow on their fur-like setae for nutrition.”
The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.