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Crab attack on the Antarctic seabed

Giant red king crabs are invading the warming waters of Antarctica, decimating native species that have lived there for 14 million years. Scientists recently predicted that it would take as long as a century of global warming for the voracious crabs to be able to tolerate sea temperatures that far south. But a submarine exploring the Palmer Deep, an abyss almost a mile deep near the West Antarctic Peninsula, has found that an estimated 1.5 million of the crabs are already entrenched—and reproducing. The 3-foot-wide crustaceans have laid waste to native creatures like sea urchins, sea lilies, and starfish. As recently as 30 years ago, the abyss was too cold for the crabs, which can’t survive in waters much below 34.5 degrees. For now, melting glacial ice still keeps the shallower waters of Antarctica’s continental shelf too cool for the crabs. But the region is warming rapidly, and the crabs appear to be gradually creeping toward the biologically richer waters of the shelf. They could get there within 20 years, Florida Institute of Technology biologist Richard Aronson tells New Scientist, and “will probably have a radical impact” on the fragile polar food chain.

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