Last summer, when NOAA researchers were collecting marine-life samples in the Gulf of Mexico, they found the cutest little crab. After sharing a video of the adorable animal on January 7th, the whole world fell in love with it. The spiky crab is apparently a baby king crab, and researchers couldn’t keep in their awe as they inspected it for the first time (thankfully, someone was taking a video).
Videos by Outdoors
“Oh. My. Goodness. WOW,” wrote NOAA Fisheries in its Instagram post sharing the viral video. “That was our reaction too, to seeing the cutest, spikiest, tiniest little crab in the world [. . .] This crab was found during an operation in the Gulf of Mexico in summer 2024, which collected samples of mesophotic and deep-sea coral species for lab rearing and propagation.”
The video gained a lot of attention online, and NOAA even shared a follow-up post with fan art that folks had created in honor of the cutest little crab in the ocean.
See the spiky baby crab here:
See the fan art here: