Accident-prone crab freezes its own mouth shut, and *facepalm*

Crabs: are they kind of dumb? Maybe.

For starters, they can't even walk properly, and apparently they can't even eat properly without succumbing to some bumbling pratfall.

This deep-sea crab was shuffling obliviously across the ocean floor off the coast of British Columbia when it stumbled into a bubbling stream of methane gas.

Naturally, the dumb crab started nomming on the super-cold bubbles — which solidified when they touched the crustacean's mouth and claws because of Chemistry.

According to the clip's narrator, this wouldn't have been as nightmarish as it sounds: it might have felt "slightly warm and mushy".

At least until the entire thing froze solid (once again, because of Chemistry) into a "milk moustache" that the crab was stuck wearing — you can pinpoint the exact moment it realises it's made a clumsy blunder worthy of a Bridget Jones movie.

The footage was captured by staff from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) — the California facility that inspired the Marine Life Institute from Finding Dory.

Uploaded to YouTube in 2013, the crab's misadventure is retrending after it was posted to Reddit this weekend. ("Heh stupid crab ate sea farts," sniggered one commenter.)

Crab mouths are like something from a horror movie: they don't have teeth but mouthparts, which are exactly as gross as they sound. Here's a look in close-up:

And here's a look in close-up and in motion:

Eeeeek.