Life

New Species Of Crayfish Is ~Out Of This World~

I took enough astronomy and read enough of the synopsis of Interstellar on Wikipedia to know that space is an intimidating place. I don't even have the metaphor-making capacity to describe how infinite it is. For those of us who are staring out at its vastness and fearing the great unknown, maybe it's time to reel it in and appreciate the stars that are already here on earth—specifically the galaxy crayfish species that was just discovered by a German scientist in Indonesia. The markings on its back look just like a nebula, except when you stare at these little dudes, you don't feel like an infinitesimally small speck that could easily get swallowed up and burped out by the universe on a whim.

The crayfish's official, scientific name is Cherax pulcher, which is gosh darn precious because "pulcher" means "beautiful" in Latin. The crayfish have actually been around for a decade or so, when they first surfaced as pets in Southeast Asia. Only recently did Christian Lukhaup collect enough research on them to trace them back to their origins and release a paper on his findings. Of course, it was accompanied with this ~out of this world~ picture of the adorable specimen as well.

I pretty much just got lost in its shell. Apparently the distinct color is more common in the male crayfish of this species, which is now becoming even more popular as a pet in Asia. As a person who spent a large portion of fourth grade helping take care of our classroom crayfish (IDK, guys, IDK), I cant attest to their generally chill nature.

No word on whether or not we can snag one of our own crustacean buddies yet, but in the meantime, we can all do this awkward crayfish dance to welcome the galaxy crayfish to our planet before their intergalactic overlord comes back to earth to collect them and kill us all. Yayyyy.

Images: Getty Images; Giphy