Weird Science?

Saturday March 11, 2006 9:00PM PT


Hairy Lobster
This photo released Tuesday March 7, 2006 by the IFREMER (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea) shows a new crustacean, called 'Kiwi hirsuta'. The eyeless shellfish, about 15cm long was discovered in March 2005 during a diving mission led by American researcher Robert Vrijenhoek, of the MBARI Institut, Cal., in hydrothermal vents of the Pacific Antartic Ridge, south of Easter Island. (AP Photo/A Fifis; IFREMER)

Would you believe us if we told you someone encountered a Yeti this week? Or met humans that walk only on their hands and feet? Welcome to Buzz Believe It or Not, where Search meets science, and everyone comes away amazed.

We begin with the most astounding story of all: the family that walks on all fours. On March 17, the BBC will air a documentary about five Turkish siblings that move naturally only on both hands and feet. These human quadrupeds may or may not suffer from a genetic abnormality that causes them to shuffle hunched over; experts aren't sure. Regardless, their story offers a startling look at human evolution, and it sparked intrigue in Buzz. Searches on "quadrupeds," "human quadrupeds," "bbc documentary," and "the family that walks on all fours" soared.

Next, we travel through the forests of Laos, where a whiskered little fellow with a head like a rat and a tail like a squirrel gave some humans a real shock last spring. At the time, scientists thought this "rat squirrel" was a brand new species. But real men know when to say they're wrong about taxonomy. Now, the authorities declare he's a member of a species they thought died off 11 million years ago. Yet there he is today, twitching and sniffing and going about his day -- and rustling up a few million years worth of buzz.

Finally, we descend into the dark realms of the South Pacific, where we find a creature so unusual that it demands an entirely new family of animal just to classify it. Now nicknamed "the Yeti crab," this beast is entirely white, blind, and coated in bristles. "Fine, hairlike filaments" cover its powerful front arms and tiny back legs. Pictures of the crustacean crawled out of obscurity into our most-popular news photos, and the story pushed "furry lobster," "hairy lobster," "yeti crab," "kiwa hirsuta" (its official name), and "new lobster" to the surface of Buzz. If the white crab met the Red Lobster, would they make pretty pink babies? Now that takes us beyond the realm of the believable.


LINK