Kiwa tyleri: Antarctic Yeti Crab Known Commonly as The Hoff

Summary: Kiwa tyleri is a yeti crab, a newly discovered family of deep-sea crabs. Found near Antarctica, Kiwa tyleri is named The Hoff after actor David Hasselhoff.

Dense communities of Kiwa tyleri congregate at E9 chimney, southern branch of East Scotia Ridge, at depth of around 7874 feet (2400 meters): Alex D. Rogers et al., CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Kiwa tyleri is the third species in a new family of deep-sea crabs discovered in the 21st century.

The genus name, Kiwa, and the family name, Kiwaidae, honor a Polynesian goddess of crustaceans.

The first species, Kiwa hirsuta (Latin: hirsuta, “hairy, shaggy”), was discovered in March 2005 on the periphery of the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge’s deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the southeastern Pacific.

The second species, Kiwa puravida, was discovered in 2006 at a deep-sea cold seep, or vent, off Costa Rica.

Kiwa tyleri, namesake of British deep-sea and polar biologist Professor Paul Tyler of England's University of Southampton, was discovered in January and February 2010 at depths of 7874 to 8530 feet (2400 to 2600 meters) in the East Scotia Ridge in the South Atlantic and Southern oceans between South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

The Kiwaidae are placed, along with two other families (Chirostylidae, Eumunididae), in the Chirostylidea, one of two superfamilies of squat lobsters.

Although superficially similar to true lobsters (Homaridae, Nephropidae families), squat lobsters feature dorsoventral (back to belly) flattening and hold their fifth pair of appendages curled under their thorax.

According to DNA sequence data, Kiwaidae’s superfamily is related more closely to the Hippoidea superfamily of mole crabs and the Paguoidea superfamily of hermit and king crabs. Kiwaidae's superfamily is related more distantly to the Galatheoidea superfamily, which consists of one family of porcelain crabs and three families of squat lobsters.

With their prominent feature of a furry appearance produced by dense coverings of bristles, known as setae (Latin: seta, "bristle"), on their appendages, Kiwa crabs are known commonly in English as yeti crabs, after the Himalayas' legendary Abominable Snowman, known as Yeti (Nepali: himamānav, "mountain man").

Kiwa tyleri’s common name of The Hoff honors actor, musician, and producer David Hasselhoff (born July 17, 1952), famed as hairy-chested actor and producer of action drama television series, Baywatch.

The Hoff thrives in the highly restricted habitat of geothermally heated hydrothermal vents. Steep temperature changes reach a maximum outflow temperature of 716 degrees Fahrenheit (380.2 degrees Celsius).

Communities cluster in high densities of over 700 individuals per square meter at two isolated sites, as the frigid temperatures of the surrounding polar waters, registering at about 32 to 29 degrees F (0.0 to minus 1.3 degrees C), preclude migration.

Only brooding females venture away from the adult refuge of vent chimneys to release larvae into the cold temperatures required for larval survival.

Kiwa tyleri individuals surmount the low-food debit of the deep-sea polar environment by feasting on dense bacterial mats that carpet vent chimneys.

Kiwa tyleri has a ghostly white appearance and features a bare carapace (French: carapace, "tortoise shell”; Portuguese: carapaça, "shell"), which is the upper, or dorsal, section of their exoskeleton, or shell.

Thick fields of bristles on its ventral, or belly, side -- which inspired the nickname of The Hoff by its discoverers -- facilitate harvesting bacterial mats from chimney vents for large-scale harboring on its own body as a ready-to-eat food source.

The Kiwa tyleri species exemplifies the astounding ability of wildlife to thrive even in seemingly unforgiving ecosystems.

As a newly discovered species also requiring the establishment of a new family, Kiwa tyleri reveals that human knowledge equates to drops in buckets, with the excitement of discovery an ever-present challenge as well as an unexpected gift.

female (left) and male (right) Kiwa tyleri on lower part of Dog's Head chimney complex, E2 hydrothermal vent, northern branch of East Scotia Ridge: Sven Thatje et al., CC BY 4.0, via PLoS ONE

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Dense communities of Kiwa tyleri congregate at E9 chimney, southern branch of East Scotia Ridge, at depth of around 7874 feet (2400 meters): Alex D. Rogers et al., CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dense_mass_of_anomuran_crab_Kiwa_around_deep-sea_hydrothermal_vent.jpg

female (left) and male (right) Kiwa tyleri on lower part of Dog's Head chimney complex, E2 hydrothermal vent, northern branch of East Scotia Ridge: Sven Thatje et al., CC BY 4.0, via PLOS ONE @ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127621

For further information:

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Available @ http://phys.org/news/2015-06-species-yeti-crab-antarctica-british.html

“’The Hoff’ Officially Named to the ‘Yeti Crab’ Species.” University Herald > Science. June 25, 2015.
Available @ http://www.universityherald.com/articles/20390/20150625/the-hoff-officially-named-to-the-yeti-crab-species.htm

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Thatje, Sven, Leigh Marsh, Christopher Nicolai Roterman, Mark N. Mavrogordato and Katrin Linse. “Adaptations to Hydrothermal Vent Life in Kiwa tyleri, a New Species of Yeti Crab from the East Scotia Ridge, Antarctica.” PLOS ONE 10(6): e0127621. Published June 24, 2015.
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Thurber, Andrew R., William J. Jones & Kareen Schnabel. "Dancing for food in the deep sea: bacterial farming by a new species of yeti crab." PLOS ONE 6 (11): e26243. Published Nov. 30, 2011.
Available via PLOS ONE @ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0026243