This terrifying swarm of crabs has scientists baffled

Grant swarm of crabs leaves scientists stumped.
(Image credit: RODRIGO BUENDIA/AFP/Getty Images)

There are some pretty creepy critters that live at the bottom of the ocean, but a discovery scientists made 1,200 feet below the waves in the waters off Panama is truly the stuff of nightmares. Crabs — thousands of them — are "swarming like insects" in a way scientists have never seen before.

"When we dove down in the submarine, we noticed the water became murkier as we got closer to the bottom. There was this turbid layer, and you couldn't see a thing beyond it. We just saw this cloud but had no idea what was causing it," the lead author of a paper on the phenomenon, Jesús Pineda, told The Guardian. The cloud, it turned out, was actually thousands of swarming crustaceans.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.