New Scientist - 19.10.2019

8 | New Scientist | 19 October 2019

SHOCKING amounts of plastic

are being ingested by crabs in

the Thames river in the UK, and

it may be passed up through the

food chain to other species.

A UK team surveying the river

looked at 55 shore crabs (Carcinus

maenas) and 57 Chinese mitten

crabs (Eriocheir sinensis, pictured),

and discovered that almost every

one had plastic in their stomach,

intestines or gills. Much of it was so

tightly wound and tangled together

inside the gastric mill –the relatively

small stomach inside these

crabs – that the plastic fibres

completely filled it.

“What is particularly shocking is,

not only are they filling the stomach,

but they can be made up of over

100 fibres [in each crab], so they

are very highly contaminated,” said

Alexandra McGoran of London’s

Natural History Museum, speaking

at New Scientist Live on 11 October.

In one crab, McGoran found the

telltale chequered pattern of plastic

from a sanitary pad, meaning that

in this case she was able to identify

exactly where it had come from.

Unlike Thames fish, many of

which have been found to have

eaten plastic that then passes

through their system quickly, the

material seems to remain inside

crabs. “We find crabs are a very

unusual sink for plastics. They seem

to retain a lot of them for potentially

a long time. We don’t know if they

are predated on, and if that high

dose is delivered to other animals,”

said McGoran.

However, she did find some fish

had eaten juvenile crabs, so if those

crabs were as contaminated as the

adults, that would mean fish were

consuming a lot of plastic too.

It is impossible to say how

many Thames crabs might have

died from ingesting plastic, said

McGoran. However, studies suggest

the contamination does have

negative impacts on the animals,

including impaired growth due to

reduced food intake.

Compared with the crabs,

shrimp in the Thames seem to be

largely unaffected. Only six out of

100 brown shrimp examined had

plastic in their digestive system. ❚

THE first moon rover to originate

from the UK is going to be tiny.

SpaceBit, a UK-based start-up,

announced last week that it is

set to have its lander touch down

on the lunar surface in 2021.

In May, NASA said that US

space robotics firm Astrobotic

and two other companies had

been awarded funding to build

lunar landers. Astrobotic was

given $79.5 million to carry up to

14 NASA instruments to the moon,

as well as 14 payloads from other

partners, including private

companies and other nations.

SpaceBit will be one of those

partners, sending its small lunar

rover to the surface inside

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander.

Weighing just 1 kilogram, the rover

is the smallest lunar rover ever,

according to SpaceBit. Once the

lander reaches the moon, the

rover will drop from beneath it

along with other payloads.

“It’s going to be quite a spectacle

when we land, because we’re going

to have multiple small rovers

dropping and rolling or crawling

or walking off and taking all

kinds of pictures and data,”

says Astrobotic CEO John

Thornton. The rovers will

send their data to the lander,

which will then transmit the

findings back to Earth.

The SpaceBit rover will be

unlike the others aboard the

lander: instead of using wheels,

it will walk around the moon’s

surface on legs. It is expected

to move only about 10 metres.

But SpaceBit hopes that the

legs will help future generations

of rovers explore tubular caves

on the moon created by ancient

lava flows, which hasn’t been done

before. Some have suggested that

Pollution

SpaceBit CEO

Pavlo Tanasyuk

(left) unveiled a

model of the tiny

lunar rover (above)

at New Scientist

JAMES WINSPEAR Live last week

News

Crabs found with

stomachs full of

discarded plastic

Adam Vaughan

Space exploration

First ever UK moon rover

It will have legs, not wheels, to help it explore even the

most difficult lunar terrain, reports Leah Crane

MIKE LANE/NATURIMAGES

2019

“ It’s going to be quite

a spectacle. We’ll have

multiple small rovers

dropping and walking off”

these caves could be sites for

future moon settlements.

“The legs could be better for steep,

rocky terrain and basically any

place where wheels start to

struggle,” says Thornton.

SpaceBit founder and CEO

Pavlo Tanasyuk announced details

of the mission at New Scientist

Live on 10 October and the firm

also displayed a life-sized model

of the rover at the show.  ❚