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With needle-sharp poisonous fangs and powerful limbs sprouting from its head, you probably won't find this crab cousin floating in a creamy bisque anytime soon. The newfound eyeless crustacean was recently discovered in the world's longest underwater lava tube, on the island of Lanzarote in the Spanish-ruled Canary Islands. (See map.)
Dubbed Speleonectes atlantida, after the Tunnel de la Atlantida where it was found, the 0.78-inch-long (20-millimeter-long) invertebrate belongs to an unusual group of crustaceans called Remipedia, which scientists first identified in 1979.
Twenty-two known species of the predatory Remipedia lurk in underwater caves around the world, from the Bahamas to Western Australia.
The newest addition to the family sports several pairs of limbs, one of which are equipped with sharp, poisonous jaws that function as hypodermic needles, said study leader Stefan Koenemann of the Institute for Animal Ecology and Cell Biology at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover in Germany.
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