January 20, 2012\u2014For the first time, scientists have observed and filmed animals including a fuzzy new species of crab swarming hot volcanic vents near Antarctica. The ghostlike crabs feed on bacteria that live off minerals spewed from the hydrothermal vents.
", "is_us_only": "false", "title": "Ghostly Yeti Crab Swarms Discovered Near Antarctica", "url": "http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/animals-news/antarctica-yeti-crab-vin/", "country_code_deny_list": [], "allowUserEmbed": "True", "related": { "link": [ { "url": "http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/01/pictures/120104-lost-world-antarctica-yeti-crabs-science-octopus/", "name": "Pictures: \"Lost World\" of Odd Species Found Off Antarctica" }, { "url": "http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111202-yeti-crab-bacteria-farming-oceans-science-animals/", "name": "\"Yeti\" Crabs Farm Food on Own Arms\u2014A First" } ] }, "credit": "2012 National Geographic; video courtesy NERC ChEsSo Consortium, NSF", "smil": "http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/data/xml/antarctica-yeti-crab-vin.smil", "country_code_allow_list": [], "HTML5src": "/video/player/media-mp4/antarctica-yeti-crab-vin/mp4/variant-playlist.m3u8", "still": "http://video.nationalgeographic.com/exposure/core_media/ngphoto/image/47229_0_616x346.jpg", "transcript": "Scientists have found a \"lost world\" of odd species living in waters near Antarctica, including swarms of a ghost-like crab that seem to move only sparingly.
The yet-unnamed new species of yeti crab, has hairy undersides, similar to their brethren in warmer waters.
The crabs are seen in the remotely-obtained video crawling over each other near deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
The mostly colorless marine animals live in utter darkness at depths of more than 7,800 feet.
The find was made by a consortium of researchers, who published their findings recently in the journal PLoS Biology.
The male yeti crabs are larger than females, and stay closest to the vents to apparently feed on communities of bacteria on their hair-lined bellies.
The females with eggs move farther away into cooler water, likely to protect embryos lining their bellies. Juveniles also are found in cooler water.
One researcher says the temperature of the water near the Antarctic vents is comparable to water found in the warm tropics.
Other creatures near the vents include barnacles that protrude from rocks in a spire like fashion. One spire-covered rock was nicknamed the 'car wash' barnacle by researchers because it looked like the spinning cylinders found in a car wash.
They even spotted a colorless octopus, one of the rarest finds on the team's expedition. It's about two feet long, and was filmed walking around on the sea floor.
Black smoker chimneys in the cold waters can spew mineral-rich water as hot as 720 degrees Fahrenheit, which warms the surrounding water to livable conditions for the newly found species. The minerals provide nourishment for the bacteria on which the larger animals feed.
The video was recorded in two segments of the East Scotia Ridge, about 2,000 miles east of the southern tip of South America.
It's a place scientists have been anxious to reach for a long time, but conditions and the limits of technology have prevented exploration, until now.
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