Attack Of The Blind Albino Yeti Crabs!

Yeti_crabWhat’s this?

That’s right! It’s a Kiwa hirsuta!

A what?

Well, it’s a creature that was discovered last year in the South Pacific, near Easter Island, though they only just announced its existence.

It’s similar to a lobster or a crab, but it’s so odd that they had to come up with a new family and genus name for it.

It’s family name is Kiwaida, after the Polynesian goddess of crustaceans, Kiwa.

To the name Kiwa they added hirsuta, which is Latin for "hairy." (Duh! It’s the critter’s most distinctive feature!)

The creature is about 6 inches long and is white and has only a vestigial membrane in place of eyes, so it’s blind.

Colloquially, those who discovered have been calling it a hairy lobster or a yeti lobster or a yeti crab.

H. P. Lovecraft would be proud.

GET THE STORY.

WIKIPEDIA ENTRY.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

7 thoughts on “Attack Of The Blind Albino Yeti Crabs!”

  1. Oooohhh, it’s so C-U-U-U-TE!
    Too bad it was blind.
    I wish it could have lived! Poor thing!!!!
    Unless it’s a hoax…
    ———–
    Seriously, if the Easter Island folks can find a way to market a plush version of that thing, they’ll have a real moneymaker on their hands.
    Hey, if they can make plush microbes…

  2. There’s a crawfish that lives in the Green River area that has hairy antennae, but nothing to match this. I think it’s kind of cute and I’d buy a plush Kiwa hursuta.
    I wonder what Lovecraft would have done with this and the squid thingy from a few months back?

  3. Wow! Such fur on a crustacean! How mammalian!
    Does that mean we can’t eat it on Fridays?

  6. Ah, the “fur” is really more like multiple whiskers – probably very handy when one is a blind crab.

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