Creepy Crab

During a three-week scientific expedition to French Frigate Shoals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, researchers found several potentially new species of crabs, corals, sea cucumbers, sea quirts, worms, sea stars, snails and clams. Many other species were found that are known from other areas but have never been recorded from French Frigate Shoals -- a coral reef built atop an eroded volcano that has been submerged for millions of years -- the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, or even the Hawaiian Archipelago.

The Northwestern Islands Marine National Monument is the largest marine conservation area in the world, encompassing 137,792 square miles of the Pacific Ocean -- an area larger than all the country's national parks combined.

Expedition members not only collected the organisms, but they took hundreds of stunning images. "It is not until you start looking through the macro lens at these organisms, and give them time to get settled, that you start to see the vibrant colors, the fine hairs covering a crab's shell, the flecks of color in the translucent tentacles of an anemone, the incredible evolutionary adaptations for survival," said Susan Middleton, who recently co-produced a photographic book for National Geographic on the plants and animals of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The expedition was part of the international Census of Marine Life, which consists of 17 projects intended to assess the diversity, distribution, and abundance of ocean life and explain how it changes over time.

-- LiveScience Staff

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Credit: Joel Martin, NHMLAC, NOAA