Endangered Species Thursday: NSFW edition

I'm sorry for this, really I am. But Mr. T found this story through a local Indy newspaper last week and it's just too interesting to pass up:

A Dutch museum said Friday it is having trouble getting its hands on a parasite that just about everybody else is anxious to avoid: crabs.

The Rotterdam Natural History Museum has appealed for somebody—anybody—to give it a single crab louse for its collection, amid fears they may be dying out.

The culprit? Let's just say a form of clearcutting has led to habitat loss.

This does bring up an interesting conundrum. Why would we want to save crab lice from extinction, right? Well, the curator of the museum makes a valid point:

"We have over 300,000 species represented in our collection," he said. "Even though most of them are not on display, that doesn't mean small, unpopular insects are less important scientifically."

Anyone want to volunteer to set up a captive breeding program?