crabs
In this nightmarish time lapse video, a gentle spider crab is internally consumed by a terrifying angry red spider crab who then dispenses of the empty husk of its former host.
... or maybe its just molting
Thanks to our Asian friend Kangatron for sharing.
So a week back or so, a number of friends read an article about death by rectal eel and immediately thought of me. For those of you who missed the story, it went a little something like this:
* Chinese man gets drunk with friends and passes out
* Friends think it would be hilarious to insert a large living swamp eel into the man's butt while he is unconscious
* Hilarity does not ensue. In fact, the man dies. Chinese doctor says the eel "consumed the man's bowels"
The article was widely reported in major news outlets like CNN and the Times, but I am linking instead to the UK edition of…
This is a picture from Fukung.net. Is it a close up of my brother, Andrew's, inner thigh? Can any of our readers explain why these crabs are trying to cross the road?
An older video that just made its way onto YouTube of the critters that make their homes around hydrothermal vents.
tags: Charles Darwin, crabs, crustaceans, University of Oxford, Oxford Museum of Natural History, online database
Fiddler crabs are easily recognised by their distinctive asymmetric claws. This specimen was captured in May 1835 when the Beagle arrived in Mauritius.
Image: Oxford University Museum of Natural History [larger view].
The University of Oxford Museum of Natural History has electronically catalogued Charles Darwin's crabs that had been collected by the famous naturalist while he was making his voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836.
These crustaceans were…
tags: researchblogging.org, climate change, global warming, oceanic dead zones, west coast, North America, Oregon state, Washington state
Millions of dead crabs are washing up onto Oregon and Washington state beaches from the offshore "dead zone".
Ever since it was first noticed by crab fishermen who hauled up hundreds of dead and dying crabs in 2002, the "dead zone" that popped up in the waters along the northwestern coastal shelf just off the coast of Oregon has claimed unknown millions of lives. This oxygen-depleted region has transformed formerly rich seafloor communities teeming with…
Researchers have long known that female fiddler crabs have a certain appreciation for the size of a mate's claw, but new findings suggest that in at least one species, the design of the male's pad is also important. John Christy, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, studied the courtship behavior of a particular species of fiddler crab in the intertidal waterways of Panama. The male fiddler crabs often build sand castles atop the entrance to their burrows. Flagging the young crab vixens down with their oversized "holla" claw, females were much more likely to…