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Hairy Crab ID

Started by Kraken de Mabini ·

  • 7Posts
  • 7Replies

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Hairy Crab ID

7 posts
  1. I met this hairy crab on a rocky slope during a night dive in Anilao, but have not yet found it in the crab id pages.  Its overall hairiness, with claws of the same size, of boxy shape with white spots and white pincers, should help to make it possible to identify, but not so for me. 

    (April 2015, Nikon D80 w 60 mm macro in Subal housing, two Sea&Sea YS-D1 strobes)

     

    imageonline-co-lightenimage.jpg

    Edited by Kraken de Mabini
  2. Is that Fred's brother "Harry"?

  3. No, it is Fred's father in law, and he refuses to tell me his name!

     

  4. Does it have 3 or 4 pairs of walking legs?  I see 3 on the LHS and possibly a smaller one part hidden?  This will distinguish between true crabs (4 pairs) and porcelain crabs/ squat lobsters (3 pairs), though the short antennae point towards a true crab.  I couldn't see anything like it in my books.

  5. Lophozozymus incisus is possible, but a long shot. I do see the violet highlights.

    I would reach out to these folks: https://www.crabdatabase.info/en/contact

    Or, just browse the site.

    They've helped me before.

  6. 1 hour ago, bmorescuba said:

    Lophozozymus incisus is possible, but a long shot. I do see the violet highlights.

    I would reach out to these folks: https://www.crabdatabase.info/en/contact

    Or, just browse the site.

    They've helped me before.

    Good resource, but man, there's a lot of crab species on the site!

  7. Thank you for the suggestions, which after looking up lead me to the web's Crab Database, which contains dozens and dozens of crab families and genuses, a very few with photos. The one that approximates my hairy-spiny crab is the Paralomis genus,

    dsc_0396_web.thumb.jpg.34f8ca756ed4fb2534a4180ccab99980.jpg

    but with no other photos of each species in its large database, I was unable to progress further.  

    However, both my crab and Paralomis genus match in being spiny, w 6 legs, equal sized claws, and a fat rounded body, a coherent near match. A closer match would require for the data base to be illustrated with photos of each species, sadly not available. However, the Paralomis histrix and P. granulosa are near matches, as is the Alaska king crab,

    12313a6c-2829-41cb-b975-8ce1c59cc3ff.jpg.277794e758bfbfab703797e8d744cc06.jpg

    suggesting this unknown crab is in their Genus. The two crabs pictured here appear to be artificially preserved, so that their coloring and fine details are lost. 

    I looked up the other genuses suggested, such as Acantholithodes and Lophizosymus,  in the Crab Database and in other web crab collections, but their photos did not match mine. 

    What did come across is that the crab family has a mind boggling number of members (genuses). I can see why divers prefer Nudibranchs, as they are beautiful, easy to find and photograph, and the variety of their genus and species is large enough to keep one quite busy, is very well documented with published collections of photos and descriptions, so that a practical approach to nudibranchs, unlike crabs, can be informed about their taxonomy, and not mind boggling. 

    Note: the two photos above are from the Crab Database, and the two pictured crabs appear to be preserved specimens, with part their coloring, fine hairs and for the Alaska king crab the left middle and part of the left rear leg, appear to be missing.

    Reference: https://www.crabdatabase.info/en/crabs/anomura/lithodoidea/lithodidae/paralomis/paralomis-pacifica-8248

    Edited by Kraken de Mabini

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