Purple crab?

[Amyandlars]

Anyone ever seen a dark purple (maybe black) crab with white tips? Found one yesterday, it's a little small to take a picture of right now. So far it hasn't really bothered anything. Hope it survives until I find out what it is.. it's in gorrilla territory right now :eek1:

 

[HowardW]

Could be a porcelain crab, or if it has striped legs it could be a stone crab.

 

[Amyandlars]

All my crabs have striped legs, even the porcelians do. And I know that they are porcelians from the "nets" and claw shape. All the stone crabs that I have seen are brown.

 

[HowardW]

Does it look like this?

 

[Amyandlars]

I've been in deep crab observations the last 2 days. So far this is what I've noticed, I have 2 different types of a red crab. One has a couple of white stripes on the legs, and big round claws like the picture above. It also just uses the nets and rarely the big claws. The other crabs have very striped legs, and long straight claws, they have the nets but use their claws mostly, to dig in crevices and such.

I got one of the bigger crabs to come out, and took a picture. Hopefully it is a porcelian, b/c I have at least 4 of these type crabs that a pretty big, and the other type with the straight claw are fairly small so far.

I'll post the picture that I did get tomorrow, if I get time.

 

[ybenormal]

The one in the picture is a stone crab and they are some of the meanest creatures you'll ever come across. Mine grew to about 2" wide before dieing off during a difficult molt. He had no fear at all and would actually chase my hand around the sump. I wish I could find another one in my area!

 

[mikehulen]

Dark Purple with small white dots on the shell and white bands at the leg joints? Stone crab....I had one in my tank until it reached 2-1/2 inch shell width and then had to part with it because it began tearing up stuff.

Mean little suckers, and have one heckuva pinch when they get bigger.:eek2: