Hitchhiker Crab ID, please.
- Thread starter Jarret
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Juvi sally lightfoot?
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Most crabs are lighter as sub adults and darken with each molt until they reach adult colour my guess itll end up having a pattern similar to this one (not my pic)
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Great way to find out take it out of the water and see if its squirts at you. Sallys use that as a defense mechanism porcelain crabs dont.
I’m legit perplexed as to why people think this is a porcelain, porcelains in general have small spots all over their legs and carapace, Sally Lightfoots have striped legs. Even the Zebra Porcelain only has stripes on the last two segments of its legs and then spots on the first segment. Also, if you look at the shape of the claws, Porcelain crabs have much more bulky, sort of bulbous claws, whereas Sally Lightfoots have smaller more narrow claws. I can’t find any pictures of a Porcelain that has anything beyond a superficial resemblance to this crab, whereas it looks identical to nearly every picture of a Sally Lightfoot.
Porcelain crabs are not true crabs. They have 6 legs. Crabs (including sally lightfoot) have 8 legs. The pic the OP posted has 6 legs. @KJ was spot on. There are many types of porcelain crabs that look different from each other. Google “porcelain crab striped legs” There are many types of crabs and decapods that haven’t been described, so it’s hard to nail the species spot on.
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@KJ and @ScottR are spot on. It is a variance of porcelain crab. It defiantly closer to a Porcelain. If we want to ID it to the species level then it will be tricky.
Most of the time we should not use coloration to identify groups of animals, rather use the structure and shape. Color are easily changes from one species or sub species from each other but we group them according to their morphology and anatomy. (DNA now mostly)
Just think of a Caucasian vs an African vs an Asian. Coloration cannot be any more different but we are all human.
Most of the time we should not use coloration to identify groups of animals, rather use the structure and shape. Color are easily changes from one species or sub species from each other but we group them according to their morphology and anatomy. (DNA now mostly)
Just think of a Caucasian vs an African vs an Asian. Coloration cannot be any more different but we are all human.
I stand corrected. Admittedly, decapoda is not an order I’ve done a lot of reading on, and have only passively kept a few species over the years. Had no idea that porcelain crabs weren’t true crabs (I knew that hermit crabs and some of the crab-like squat lobsters weren’t true crabs), or that one of the differences was six vs eight legs. Been keeping reef aquariums for over 20 years and still learn new stuff pretty much daily.
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