Good evening y’all,
I am a sponge crab. I am a natural born tailor and love to dress up in beautiful outfits. Hide and seek is my favorite game.
If you spot me, you wouldn’t be forgetting my wacky appearance any time soon. I am that extravagant.
While other not-so-cool crabs rely on their hard shells, intricate patterns and pincers for protection, I use live sponges, or anemones – fashioning them to my own body and holding them in place like colourful hats.
There are many predators on the reef at night, looking for a tasty crab snack and they evolved many different methods of getting a bite out of us, so I have evolved to carry large pieces of camouflage to prevent being spotted by fish, octopus and other crabs.
My sponge isn’t just a disguise, it also serves as a shield. Some have a very good set of chemical defences to protect themselves from predation. Many produce toxins or otherwise obnoxious chemicals to deter predators – this gives me even more protection.
My sponge remains living while I carry it, I am not sure how it feels about being carried around though, we never start that conversation.
However despite being common, I am hard to find because of my deceptive headgear. It is a very effective camouflage, and the ladies love it.
You can find me at any given depth, as long as there are many rocks, cracks, corals and sponges to hide in.
My family (Dromiidae) is considered one of the most primitive groups of the true crabs, with remnants of a tail fan and more primitive reproductive biology in females.
My body anatomy is certainly very interesting for how I am evolutionarily related to other crustacea, but it is certainly my behaviours and quite comical appearance that makes me so unforgettable.
I appear to have a grumpy-looking face poking out from under my sponge cap, and at first sight I seem a bit clumsy walking around under water – but that is due to my oversized hat. I can even cut hats that allow me to glide down from the reef edge to the sandy bottom.
Come find me on your next night dive!
Click here if you want to see me on a date!!!