need help ID'ing this crab

[jeleak]

today while unpacking my corals, i found what looked like a black mithrax crab hitchhiking along the hairy mushroom rock

i managed to snap a very blurry pic of em before he found a crevice in the rock

 

[charlesr1958]

I have a few examples of Mithrax crabs within my hitch hiker pages. For me, the easiest way to tell them apart from other types is by their claw, the tip of which will be spoon shaped and is used to scrape rocks for algae/inverts. While small, they appear to do no real harm, but as they get larger, I have caught them scraping off zoanthids and running off with them.

Chuck's Hitch Hikers

 

[graveyardworm]

jeleak,

If you cant find a picture to match it to then a clearer picture will be needed. Crabs can be tough to id, even less is known about their individual habits, there so many of them. Best thing to do is QT until you can determine whether its a good or bad guy.

 

[jeleak]

thanks for the welcome, i have been lurking here for a while