What adaptations does this creature have?

Question

What adaptations does the Vent crab have?

Answer 1

Their eyes change drastically when they metamorphose from a pelagic larva to a benthic juvenile.  They lose the ability to see most light and instead develop a naked-retina eye with pigments highly sensitive to blue wavelengths, the wavelength that penetrates the deepest in water.  This combination allows them to see in incredibly dim light that is produced by chemical processes at the vents.

Their specific type of hemocyanin (a respiratory protein) is less sensitive the changes in temperature and pH than that in other crabs.  Also, its hemocyanin-oxygen affinity increases with an increase in sulfide accumulation.  This can allow the crab to increase metabolic activity when there is potential sulfide toxicity, which allows for increased action of the hepatopancrease to de-toxify the sulfide compounds.

Answer 2

Vent crabs are successful predators because they can withstand a wide range of temperatures [36-77 degrees] & can withstand 250 times the atmosphereic pressure that humans can.  

They can take in oxygen at these extremes levels and tolerate constant chemical changes in their surroundings.

They have a heightened sense of smell, used to hunt/track prey.  

They also move about 4 cm per second, pretty fast for an animal of this size, and underwater.

They colonize the vents in the pacific ocean, and scientists are studying to figure out how they migrate to such distances to get to new