Jonathan Amos Science
correspondent
Maggie
Georgieva is turning a jar of preservative around in her hands. "This is
it," she says. "This is 'The Hoff' - the famous yeti crab with a
hairy chest," referring to the object suspended in alcohol.
Most of
us would be hard pressed to name a recently discovered creature from the deep,
and this animal may even be the only one that triggers any sort of recognition.
The Hoff made
headlines in 2012 after being spotted living 2,000m down
in a volcanic region of the Southern Ocean.
A novel
species, the researchers who found it joked that the crustacean's fluffy
appearance had something in common with a certain American movie star. The
nickname stuck.
Of
course, The
Hoff eventually got a proper title and description. It's
correctly called Kiwa tyleri. And, as is customary, reference examples
were lodged at the Natural History Museum in London,
which is how a specimen comes to be in the hands of Dr Georgieva.
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