Please ID hitchhiker crab :)

[Lion-o]

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong forum - I looked through all of them and wasn't sure if i should go to the reef section or the "other inverts".

This cute little guy hitch hiked into my tank - i believe with the rock. He seems harmless but I just want to make sure.

My thoughts were perhaps a color morph of the emerald crab... but his pincers seem to be a little stubbier than an emerald's. He's hard to get a good picture of as hes shy and only comes out at night. I have seem him grazing on the tank algae.

thanks in advance!

 

[waldomas]

yeah...a cute little guy now.

He'll get bigger and eat a fish and you won't think so.

The black tipped claws and hairy look say hes a Gorrilla crab and not a good one!


BAN him to the sump where he can't cause any harm.
So they say anyway.

 

[SushiGirl]

Black tipped claws & red eyes = bad. Try catching it with a tilted glass with some food in it (tilted up so it can't get back out).

 

[tubntxawg]

Gorrilla crab, that is a bad boy... have fun getting him out...

 

[langtudatinh01]

you could serve it for dinner. but dont plan to keep it in an aquarium.

 

[shananagans]

I agree, get him out. The sooner the better. I made the mistake in the past of thinking they were cute...

 

[LeslieH]

It is a xanthid and with those red eyes it resembles Actaeodes tomentosus. Beastie will probably have a better idea of what it is. A lot of these small xanthids are primarily herbivores & opportunistic scavengers. A recent gut study showed that the main component of their diet was coralline & micro-algae, followed by small worms & crustaceans (like pods), dead animals, and corals. From the percentage of coral material found in the gut I thought it might have been accidentally ingested when the crab was picking off algae or another food item. The crabs in the study were caught in the wild. What one will do in a tank if there's not enough of its preferred food is another story.

 

[Coroner47]

If you don't want him, he'll have a good home with me. Ive got 2 black clawed crabs in my 20gal tank... They're very fun.

 

[BEASTIEPENDENT]

THX Leslie

What I can say is that neither red eyes nor hairy legs are a sign for "bad" or "good" crab. It has to say… nothing! This one is indeed a Xanthid crab as Leslie said and many indeed are herbivore primarily (what doesn't mean they wouldn't take ANYTHING else they can get, but usually they don't hunt actively). These ones you can identifay by spoony claw tips – this one seems (!) to have sharp claw tips but I can't see it clearly.

It is not Actaeodes I think, but those red eyes have some more species. But it is a Xanthid, as Leslie said. A really good hint would be if You could see the tips of its pinchers.

 

[peasofme]

they're really cool. not reef safe. hope u put him somewhere or give him away.