Child of hairy shrimp and orang utan crab? (Philippines)

[Fabian]

Hi all,

Guys, I (almost) did it. I tagged all 4500 pictures from my Philippines trip in April/May with the names of the species photographed. Almost: four pictures of two species are missing 🥴.

 

1) I found this critter while diving in Bohol, looks a bit like an orang utan crab and a hairy shrimp had a really good time together. If I recall correctly, this little guy was about 2cm (plus minus a lot? 🙈). I managed to take three pictures (photographically I'm not really happy with the perspective, but hope they allow identification) before he decided to hide.

 

2) Some kind of box crab maybe?

 

All pictures taken with Sony 90mm / A7IV, Backscatter MF1+OS1. No editing done. If higher resolution would help, let me know and I'll upload it somewhere at 100% res and link it.

All help in identifying those little crabs is highly appreciated! 🙏🙏🙏

 

Best,
Fabian

[bghazzal]

Pretty cool!
Given the colour and shape, the first one looks like a hairy purple reef spider crab -  probable some kind Achaeus , same family as the orang-utan crab (Achaeus japonicus).

Edited November 5 by bghazzal

[Troporobo]

I’ve seen that first one around Anilao quite a lot and always assumed it was just a skinny example of an orangutan crab.  Undernourished perhaps!  Good to know it’s a different species.