parasitic coral crab???

[MegsB]

what is this?? in the first photo you can see it attatched to a mouth on a lobo coral, on the left of that photo you can see a dead mouth (this coral had 2 mouths, one died a few weeks ago, i didnt know why). I pried this creepy little crab-like thing out of the corals second mouth tonight, it was attached with 4 of its legs, and the other four were showing outside the coral, along with its giant eyes.

I pried it out of the mouth and snapped a few photos of it, it hardly moves at all, the legs move a little if flipped upside down or taken out of water.

any thoughts on what it is?

 

[StephLionfish]

It doesn't look reef safe.. just the way it was in the coral... but I have no idea.
It looks really cool, though... don't kill it. I'd make a little box with sand and a tiny piece of live rock for it in my fuge if I were you. That's what I did with my Teddy Bear Crab.

 

[mndfreeze]

Ooohhhh there was a post or article a few months ago about some wierd crazy crab like critter that lives inside coral skeleton. The coral actually grows around it and it teases the coral to grow in a certain shape. So it has a cavity inside a live coral with just a hole opening where it feeds from or something along those lines. I remember it looked really wierd too, not like a normal crab. I've been trying to find images or info but am coming up empty. ;/

 

[peasofme]

looks like one of those commensal crabs that cleans the coral actually helping it grow. either that or it is a coral killer. never seen a crab with eyes like that. creepy

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

It's a gall crab. Nasty buggers.

 

[mndfreeze]

Gall crab! thats what I was looking for.