Self respecting crabs

[donya]

Ah, You DO write here too. I thought I remembered Your name"¦

A little bit of writing, but mostly lurking. I like to think I'm quite good at lurking.

Yeah, Berkeley normally is a really serious institution

Only normally? Not a big Berkeley fan? :lol:

I thought for a long time "when a scientist says this or that it must be so" but they are humans as everyone else and wrong IDs etc. are not uncommon.

Since I am in one area science and have explored a few others on the way to my present field, I know this fact well. Some number of years before I became interested in hermit crab behavior, I was persuing various things about Ampullarid snails (the freshwater "apple snails"). The species descriptions that had been passed down through the literature had hobbyists hunting for a snail that is either incredibly good at hiding or does not match its description. The one museum shell collection I was able to dig through in person also had some funny business going on with the labels.

That is why I do not trust CalPhoto in this case BLINDLY. One would have to search the original description of C. digueti at best"¦

And that is why it is not the only resource I use, just the one that is most convenient many times online. I end up digging through badly scanned pdfs plenty as well. Citations of descriptive publications are also useful, provided they give enough information. Of course those are not always easily found either.

or ask an up-to-date scientist who could know.

I would assume someone who has studied the species directly would be best to ask, but no names come to mind without doing some looking first.

So I'll post a fabulous picture of Mr. Crab. What do you think?

This image didn't show up when I posted before...but that looks much more Calcinus-ish to me than any Clibanarius I've seen.

Just to followup on the red/green/etc. eyestalks issue: I have some of the animal I described as "C. digueti" and checked them last night. While I'm not sure I'd call the eyestalks green (maybe it would be green in some individuals...there is variation), red is definitely the wrong word.

 

[BEASTIEPENDENT]

Upps, it appears the planned answer got out of my mind, sorry. We had a big car failure (expensive and annoying *grrrrr*) and a scientific congress in Regensburg and work"¦

Only normally? Not a big Berkeley fan? :lol:

A fan no. But I have due respect. But by all means of respect errors are still possible and happen quite often as I learned. Not at Berkeley in special, but everywhere.

"¦I was persuing various things about Ampullarid snails (the freshwater "apple snails").

Well known to me.

I would assume someone who has studied the species directly would be best to ask, but no names come to mind without doing some looking first.

Like I thought about that too without a solution"¦ If Leslie has no idea we could ask Joseph Poupin in Brest.

This image didn't show up when I posted before...but that looks much more Calcinus-ish to me than any Clibanarius I've seen.

Still can't see it.

Salut, Ollie

 

[donya]

There are two references worth checking if anyone happens to have access to them right now:

A Handbook to the Common Intertidal Invertebrates of the Gulf of California (1st ed)
or
Common Intertidal Invertebrates of the Gulf of California (2nd ed of the above)

Both are edited by Brusca and are cited regarding C. digueti's range and description in publications regarding experiments done with C. digeueti. Unfortunately I let a really cheap copy of the 2nd edition slip past me because I waited too long to get it, and I don't really want to pay $50 for it now...so instead I have a $7 copy of the first edition on the way. Depending on how useful it turns out to be, at some point I may also see if i can get the 2nd edition through interlibrary loan. Interestingly, this is the first time I have not been able to get instant gratification on a book I want through my university's current collections.

Still can't see it.

Even using the URL directly doesn't show it?
http://dav.me/images/reef/mrcrab.jpg

 

[BEASTIEPENDENT]

Even using the URL directly doesn't show it?
http://dav.me/images/reef/mrcrab.jpg

Thx donya that worked now immediately. Should be Calcinus tibicen: http://www.reeflex.net/tiere/894_Calcinus_tibicen.htm

Salut, Ollie

 

[donya]

I notice the eyestalk colors are different between the two photos and that the one from this thread also appears to lack the characteristic bands at the tips of the legs (although it is very hard to see from the photo...it looks like one tip is visible but out of focus). Are these features that vary within Calcinus tibicen?

 

[BEASTIEPENDENT]

Honestly I don't know. There are some picturs of "our" C. tibicen and I first misidentified it as C. californensis… Gerrit brought to my mind that this was not correct and C. tibicen quite variable in general coloration. I'm not sure though if that fits the eye stalks too.

And: I didn't mean "Should be…" but "Looks to me as…", because I am not that sure with Anomurans.

 

[donya]

Hmmm...I wonder if that one is Calcinus californiensis actually. If the pictures I've been looking at are correctly IDed, it seems to be roughly the same as C. tibicen but without the bands on the tips of the walking legs.

Also, Brusca 1977 finally arrived today. From page 244:

Clibanarius digueti Bouvier
This is probably the commonest intertidal hermit of the Gulf, especially the northern Gulf. Clibanarius digueti is a small red crab with brown eyes, and white or pale blue spots on its red legs and chelipeds. The chelipeds are equal in size, elongate, and hairy.

So, unless this paragraph was changed when updating to the second edition, it would seem to support U.C. Berkeley's identifications. The same book also addresses Calcinus californiensis but unfortunately doesn't give a detailed enough description to distinguish it from C. tibicen, probably because C. tibicen does not exist in the range covered by the book.

 

[BEASTIEPENDENT]

I "ID"'d our supposed californiensis here: http://biomar.free.fr/calcinus/www/califor.htm with the picture under http://biomar.free.fr/calcinus/images/calcinus_californiensis.jpg . Joseph Poupin and Mary Wicksten are well known scientists so that can be granted for as serious as Berkeley too.

One can see though that the pincers remind one of our hermit, but the eyestalks and black walking legs tips indeed differ. So it seems that californiesis has darker eyestalks than tibicen and the black tips.

Good night everybody, Ollie