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A Caribbean hermit crab in the Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida. The Caribbean hermit crab (Coenobita clypeatus), also known as the soldier crab, [2] West Atlantic crab, tree crab, or purple pincher (due to the distinctive purple claw), is a species of land hermit crab native to the west Atlantic, Belize, southern Florida, [3] Venezuela, and the West Indies.
A hermit crab emerges from its shell, Coenobita perlatus Outside its shell, the soft, curved abdomen of hermit crabs, such as Pagurus bernhardus, is vulnerable. Hermit crab species range in size and shape, from species only a few millimeters long to Coenobita brevimanus (Indos Crab), which can approach the size of a coconut and live 12–70 years.
Coenobita is closely related to the coconut crab, Birgus latro, with the two genera making up the family Coenobitidae.The name Coenobita was coined by Pierre André Latreille in 1829, from an Ecclesiastical Latin word, ultimately from the Greek κοινόβιον, meaning "commune"; the genus is masculine in gender.
In the Anomura (hermit crabs and related animals), the fifth pair of pereiopods is often hidden inside the branchial chamber, where they are used to clean the gills. The cephalothorax is covered by a carapace which protects the internal organs and the gills; the section of the carapace that projects in front of the eyes is called the rostrum .
The phylogeny of king crabs as hermit crabs who underwent secondary calcification and left their shell has been suspected since the late 1800s. [4] They are believed to have originated during the Early Miocene in shallow North Pacific waters, where most king crab genera – including all Hapalogastrinae – are distributed and where they exhibit a high amount of morphological diversity.
The larger hermit crabs have been known to submerge their entire bodies into the sea water. The saltwater is used to bind the shell to the crabs back through the high salinity in the water. [ 6 ] In addition, water in the shell allows for rehydration, wetting the surface of their gills and abdomen which aids in gas exchange, reducing their body ...
Clibanarius tricolor is a hermit crab that lives in shallow water of the Caribbean Sea and is popular in the home aquarium trade. Its common names include blue-legged hermit crab, tricolor hermit crab, [1] blueleg reef hermit crab, equal handed hermit crab and blueleg hermit crab.
Thirty-two species of decapod crustaceans have been recorded in Dominica, an island nation in the Caribbean Lesser Antilles. This includes eighteen species of true crabs (infraorder Brachyura); three species of hermit crab; one species of porcelain crab (infraorder Anomura); and eleven species of freshwater shrimp (infraorder Caridea).