Posted by Deanna Darr on Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:46 AM
The Hoff has crabs—or rather, The Hoff is a crab.
A new species of crabs—a variety of the yeti crab—discovered in the southern Pacific has been dubbed The Hoff crab due to its rather hairy chest. Guess all that running around on the beach on Baywatch has finally paid off for David Hasselhoff, although we're guessing this isn't the way most of us thought he would be connected to crabs.
The discovery was made by a team of scientists from the United Kingdom studying the East Scotia Ridge deep below the ocean near Antarctica. Hydrothermal vents are abundant in the area, and the crabs—along with starfish, barnacles, sea anemones and other forms of deep-water life—thrive in the hot, mineral-rich water.
While the new crab species has yet to be given its official scientific name, one other fact is known about them—they seem to enjoy lying around on top of one another in massive heaps near thermal vents. Hmmm, seems even more Hoff-like.