Dat Shit Cray...fish

Scientists sampling a deep-sea trench in New Zealand got a surprise when their traps brought back seven giant prawns. The "supergiant" amphipods are more than 20 times larger than their typical crustacean cousins (generally less than a half-inch long).

"We pulled up the trap, and lying among the fish were these absolutely massive amphipods, and there was no inkling whatsoever that these things should be there," said Alan Jamieson, leader of the expedition that turned up the "supergiants."

The largest of the seven specimens was about 11 inches (28 cm) long

The pale, leggy creatures were found 4 miles down in the Kermadec Trench (off the northeast coast of New Zealand) - one of the deepest trenches on Earth.

In addition to the animals captured in the trap, a seafloor camera more than a mile (2 km) away spied at least nine supergiant amphipods.

A week later, when the expedition returned to the same spot, there was no sign of the supergiant amphipods, which was "very, very strange," Jamieson said.

The scientists are mounting a return sampling expedition to the same swath of deep sea off the coast of New Zealand in a week.