New "Hairy Lobster" Crustacean Discovered and Classified

AviLazar writes "American-led divers discovered a new type of Crustacean, that resembles a lobster but has it's claws covered in 'sinuous, hair-like strands'. This species is so different, from other Crustacean's that it was classified with a new Family name: Kiwaida. Unfortunately for the Kiwaida, the AP is already using this blind creature and a salad plate in the same sentence."

Comments

Bigger pic

[StonedRat]

There's a bigger pic on bbc, reminds me of the big hug from the soup adverts.

Pic
Article

Re:Why hairy?

[foxcorner]

The equivalent article at the BBC mentions bacteria living in the hair: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4785482. stm

the squatter

[ExE122]

Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it.

These scientists obviously don't know squat!

Re:the squatter

[Rxke]

They do.
From the BBC article: "From its general shape and appearance, the new creature resembles freshwater "squat lobsters" found in South America. But Dr Segonzac said that genetic analysis showed it was closer to marine members of this group."

Re:Is it tasty though?

[polymath69]

A lot of deep sea creatures have ammonia in them for anti-freeze

Not saying you're wrong, but why would they? It doesn't make sense. After all, the pressure at depth stops the water from freezing, and so would automatically do the same for any creatures adapted to that environment. Chemical antifreeze would only be required for near-surface beasties, where the pressure isn't there to do the job.

What I'm wondering is what the hairs do when moulting: do they stay with the old shell, or pull through leaving sieve-like holes? The latter would seem to be extraordinarily difficult.

Dear god..

[boingo82]

this is by FAR the worst grammar I have ever seen in a summary. I am actually depressed.

"American-led divers discovered a new type of Crustacean,(comma unnecessary) that (which)resembles a lobster but has it's (its, dammit) claws covered in 'sinuous, hair-like strands'. This species is so different, (comma unnecessary) from other Crustacean's (apostrophe inappropriate) that it was classified with a new Family name: Kiwaida. Unfortunately for the Kiwaida, the AP is already using this blind creature and a salad plate in the same sentence."

Re:Is it tasty though?

[linzeal]

Well a lot of hydrothermal vents have ammonia around them and a lot of the bacteria use it as a food souce, perhaps the ammonia in the animals is just a breakdown product of their food cycle that also is an anti-freeze.

Good question

[jd]

The photographs don't show an individual hair under a microscope (pity) but the density would be good for both sensing and feeding. My guess would be both. The BBC's photos show it floating, not on the sea bed, which tends more towards the filter feeding, but being able to tell sea currents would likely be valuable.

I can't remember if it's the anemone or the sea urchin (or both) that uses "arms" to guide food to a mouth. If there is a central mouth, rather than one on each hair (as you might expect on a filter feeder), then my guess would be that the hairs are manipulators for food particles.

What makes it especially interesting

[jd]

Is that many "blind" fish exist, trapped in underground lakes where eyes serve no purpose. Fish transported there don't become blind, it is only the fish that have been there countless generations. HOWEVER, they go blind by a membrane growing over the eye. The eye is still there and research (from what I understand) suggests that the eye is still fully functional.

Here, there is no eye, there is only a membrane. This suggests one of two possibilities. Either it has existed in conditions where light would serve no purpose for FAR longer than the "blind" fish - such that the eye has devolved completely, or it predates the evolution of the eye entirely.

This may be testable. It's believed this new crustacean is a new species, but the only real test for this would be to run a DNA test and compare it against known crustacean DNA types. This would also give a good indication of how ancient the species is, as we'd then know how much junk DNA there was and if/when it split off from any other known species.

Talking of DNA, there have been a lot of new species discovered recently, but I've not heard of much DNA work being done and there are still VERY few species in any of the online DNA databases I've seen. I can't help but feel that this is an area of work that isn't being utilized as much as it could be. Sure, it's not cheap, but the masses of DNA sequencing labs that have sprouted up for genealogical DNA work can't possibly be getting enough orders to keep running. There must surely be some way of tapping into existing resources that would bring the cost of the work down to affordable levels.

But, then, maybe not. Absolute production-line marker recognition of one Y chromosome and mDNA of a well-known species over a very narrow time-frame is relatively trivial compared to charting actual base-pairs and chromosomes over an unmapped type of DNA for a species of uncertain classification, where the nearest point of reference might be anywhere from very recent to a few hundred million years apart.

Even so, DNA research for species identification must surely be an area that could supplement the income of such labs, the equipment would only need to be able to do enough work to produce preliminary results of some sort, the promotional value can't hurt, and it would give researchers something more than "it looks really different" to go by.

Re:Is it tasty though?

[Anonymous Coward]

Water is most dense at 4 degrees celsius and that is why water does not freeze at the ocean's depths. In other words, the water in the ocean's depths is 4 degrees celsius and, hence, does not freeze.

You might be thinking of super-heated water by thermal ducts that does not flash into steam because of the intense pressure.