Kiwa tyleri, the "
Hoff crab", is a species of deep-sea
squat lobster in the family
Kiwaidae, which lives on
hydrothermal vents near
Antarctica.
[1] The crustacean was given its English nickname in 2010 by UK deep-sea scientists aboard the
RRS James Cook, owing to resemblance between its dense covering of
setae on the ventral surface of the exoskeleton and the hairy chest of the actor
David Hasselhoff.
[2] The 2010 expedition to explore
hydrothermal vents on the
East Scotia Ridge was the second of three expeditions to the Southern Ocean by the UK led research consortium, ChEsSo (Chemosynthetic Ecosystems of the Southern Ocean).
[3]