Scientists found something amazing (and adorable!) during a plastic cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico.
“This is the cutest, spikiest, tiniest crab in the world,” says NOAA Fisheries on X, adding cheekily: “Don't quote us on that – it's called hyperbole.”
Researchers were cleaning up marine debris from corals 1,060 metres deep when they found the charming critter. The clean-up was part of a mission from NOAA, Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Navy’s Experimental Diving Unit to restore seafloor habitats that were affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
“This baby crab was identified by experts at NOAA Fisheries and the Smithsonian Institution as likely Neolithodes agassizii, nickname: king crab (not the kind at your local seafood restaurant),” says a spokesperson at NOAA Fisheries.
It was collected when the restoration team removed a plastic bag from the ocean and has been “preserved in the Smithsonian Institution’s invertebrate collection to help current and future scientists learn about this species, make discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico, and inform restoration efforts,” says NOAA Fisheries.
Image and video credit: National Marine Sanctuary Foundation/Sasha Francis
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