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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."
what do they taste like?
I've heard of a hairy clam but never a hairy lobster.
This raises obvious questions about the value of the 'hairs'.
Given that it is blind, I suppose they may be tactile, like a cat's whiskers.
Or perhaps detritous gets stuck in the hairs and it is a rudimentary filter feeder.
Or perhaps most lobsters shave regularly, but since this one's blind... nah.
The "hairs" are probably not what we think of as hair, but probably serve as some kind of sensory system, to detect the movement of currents or perhaps the movement of prey nearby, since according to the article: "It's also blind. The researchers found it had only 'the vestige of a membrane' in place of eyes, Segonzac said."
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There's a bigger pic on bbc, reminds me of the big hug from the soup adverts.
Pic
Article
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
I want one of those to hang on my rear view mirror.
"People laugh when I say that I think a jellyfish is one of the most beautiful things in the world. What they don't understand is, I mean a jellyfish with long, blonde hair."
The hair, while surprising, is not if you consider that it could just be a sensory organ. Note how evolution deprecated the critter's eyes since the hairs would probably be more effective in the 7500 foot depth where it lives. Once in a while it is nice to see that there are still things to be discovered.
Since when was a salad plate a unit of measure?
Don't just classify it, provide a recipe too!
Here is the new Taxonomy order:
Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Yummy-ness!
Oh quit being shellfish - some people like the experience.
But seriously... what else are you eating that causes hairs to get stuck in your teeth?
My mother was right! It will make hair grow on your hands.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
It _was_ a French scientist who discovered it but then he immediately surrendered to it and it took the arrival of an American scientist to capture it and haul it back for interrogation whereupon it was immediately killed. Rumsfeld disavows all knowledge of this but promises to launch a full investigation.
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!Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
I heard they also found a new type of hairy lobster off the brazilian coast ... but it only had a thin strip of hair down the middle!
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Finally! A crustacean I can hug!!!
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At first I misread the title as: "New 'Hairy Lobster' Crustacean Discovered in Classifieds"
I now feel safe enough to creepily browse myspace again...
An albino tarantula raped a lobster as it was scavenging near shore.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
A lot of deep sea creatures have ammonia in them for anti-freeze and are not very tasty.
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you must have remarkably poor technique.
The edible parts are hairless.
sigs, as if you care.
I thought "Hairy Lobster" was the upcoming Ubuntu release...
So blondes aren't going extinct after all - they're just just mutating into a more intelligent form.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
As a republican I feel it my responsibity to manufacture criminals. People need punished!
>But seriously... what else are you eating that causes hairs to get stuck in your teeth?
McDonalds cheeseburgers
You're thinking of the bearded clam.
And the Goblet of Butter
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
Life imitates The Onion: New, Delicious Species Discovered
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
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.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)