The crab that speaks no evil!
Shame-faced Crabs are a whole host of crabs in the genus
Calappa, found in shallow, tropical seas all over the world.
They get their name from the fact that they always hold their claws over their face as if they're ashamed of something! But they don't have anything to be ashamed of... they have gigantic claws, instead.
I suppose the actual pincers are quite sizeable on their own, but they're at the end of huge arms so that they look like hands popping out of
voluminous sleeves.
The arms wrap all the way around the sides of the body and can clip into place to protect the legs and underbelly from unwanted attention.
It's as if there's a crab version of the Transformers where crabs turn into misshapen cannon balls. Hey, at least it's more useful than the ones that turn into
cassette tapes.
This defensive stance, along with their sheer (and
sometimes hilarious) bulk, is where they get their other name from: the Box Crab.
Some Shame-faced Crabs also have great camouflage so you can barely see them against the sand and stones they walk on. It gets even more difficult when they bury themselves in that same sand and stone leaving scarcely more than a pair of eyes betraying their presence. This crab leaves
nothing to chance!
But it's not all running and hiding for the Shame-faced Crab. They have gigantic claws, remember?
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| Image: Moorea Biocode |
One of those claws has a strange, rounded tooth half way along it. It's massive! And it's used to crack open the shells of snails and shellfish. The other claw is much longer and slimmer and is used to tear the meat out.
That's horrible!
You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
4 comments:
Great and Amazing things are all around us and we are unaware!
cutest dang thing i've seen today!!!
The way it dug itself into the sand was hilarious! And that noise at the end had me rolling in laughter! Was that the diver or the crab?LOL
@Ishrat: I know! It's incredible what creatures we don't even know about!
@TexWisGirl: Sounds like a great day!
@Steph: pretty sure it was the diver... perhaps they found it as hilarious as the rest of us did!
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