Land crab

“ These observations demonstrate that human presence does not necessarily have a negative impact on land crabs, as suggested by [5] . The relationship between land crabs and humans might depend on the type of habitat, human settlement system and land use. ”

“ The green crab spends a great part of its life out of the water, for its gills are made in such a manner that they will keep moist for a very long time. And as long as its gills are damp a crab can breathe quite as easily on land as if it were in the sea. It is very active, and if you go down near the water’s edge while the tide is coming in you may often see it hunting sandhoppers and even flies, creeping up to them very carefully until it is only a few inches away, and then pouncing upon them so suddenly that they have no time to escape. ”

“ Most crabs live in the sea, and even the land-crabs, which are abundant in tropical countries, nearly all visit the sea occasionally and pass through their early stages in it. Many shore-crabs living between tide-marks are more or less amphibious, and the river-crab of southern Europe or Lenten crab (Potamon edule, better known as Thelphusa fluviatilis) is an example of the freshwater crabs which are abundant in most of the warmer regions of the world. ”

“ Further photographs and accounts by [27] and Brewer (in litt.) indicate that Johngarthiaplanata is a common element of the urban wildlife and seeks food and shelter in closest proximity to human houses:
“People who have built homes in the jungle near the ocean, however, consider the all-pervasive land crabs quite troublesome. If the crabs can get into the house (they can climb walls!) , they can damage clothing, books, and food. Outside of the house, they are quite hard on garden plants, shredding foliage and damaging plant roots from inside their tunnels. ”

“ They live in large holes, which they dig themselves and line with the fibre torn from the cocoanut-shell. They grow to a great size, and sometimes a single crab will yield a quart of oil. They are distinctively land-crabs, and the natives say they only use the sea to bathe in. We asked our guide if all crabs in Samoa are good to eat, and he answered that all land-crabs were, but the sea ones were doubtful, some of them being poisonous at certain seasons of the year.
A PLANTATION IN THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS.
"We went into some of the native houses, and found them neat and clean. ”

“ As many groups, including dominant competitors and predators, have not naturally reached remote islands, others were less constrained to evolve novel adaptations and invade adaptive zones occupied by other taxa on continents. Land crabs are an excellent example of such ecological release, and some crab lineages made the macro-evolutionary transition from sea to land on islands. Numerous land crabs are restricted to, although widespread among, oceanic islands, where they can be keystone species in coastal forests, occupying guilds filled by vertebrates on continents. ”

“ Two species—the mangrove crab, and the white and black land crab—are found near the mouths of the rivers and in all the lagoons; while the curious soldier crabs, which seem as much at home in one element as in the other, inhabit in vast numbers the trees which lie rotting half submerged in the water. At certain times they may be found making their way into the interior, to return afterwards to the ocean.
The neighbourhood of the ocean, and the rivers and lakes of the interior, swarm with an endless variety of fish; while the huge manatee, or sea-cow, is found in most of the rivers. ”

“ Almost all tropical islands are occupied by land crabs; in the tropical Pacific only the Hawaiian Islands “lack” them. However this is a secondary phenomenon, as land crabs were present in Hawai'i before human colonization. Here we describe an abundant, highly terrestrial, large, presumably carnivorous-omnivorous, extinct land crab, and review records of other terrestrial and semi-terrestrial decapods recorded from these islands. ”

“ The next case (17) contains in addition to the long-eyed or telescope crab, varieties of the land-crab, which is found in various parts of India; one kind, that swarms in the Deccan, commits great ravages in the rice-fields. The two next tables are covered with Chinese crabs, square-bodied crabs; those crabs with fine shells known as porcelain crabs, and the curious death's head crab, which seems to build a kind of nest of sponge or shells. But upon the next table (20) the visitor will find the most remarkable of the crabs, together with an astonishing lobster. ”

“ The claws of a crab are his weapons, and terrible ones they are, too. With them he defends himself against his enemies, and with them he attacks his prey and tears it to pieces.
His bill of fare is composed of some kinds of fish and lower water animals; and it is said that some crabs feed on sharks and whales. In return fishes, sea-stars, sea-urchins and some shell-fish eat the young crustaceans, and even attack the larger ones.
In the sand of the seashore the mother crab, or lobster, lays her eggs, and there she leaves them to be hatched by the sun. ”

“ The burrows are made by crayfish belonging to the genera Engaeus and Astacopsis, which are popularly known as land-crabs.
1848. Letter by Mrs. Perry, given in Canon Goodman's `Church in Victoria, during Episcopate of Bishop Perry,' p. 72:
"Full of crab holes, which are exceedingly dangerous for the horses. There are holes varying in depth from one to three feet, and the smallest of them wide enough to admit the foot of a horse: nothing more likely than that a horse should break its leg in one. ”

“ Crabs seem to be foraging everywhere in the leaf litter, wildly waving their claws and scurrying away to their burrows and caves at the first apprehension of danger. Most people find them interesting and amusing, even comical, with their tubular, hyper-vigilant eyes, their defensive postures and wild gestures. ”

“ There are several canoes full of women, for catching crabs is the special business of the women, as hunting is the special work of the men.
The land-crabs burrow in the ground. Their holes are found in very large numbers in some parts of the country. The burrows form the subterranean homes of the crabs, into which they retire when alarmed—and the slightest noise does that. They remain in their burrows until hunger drives them out in search of food, or when they fancy danger is averted. ”

“ And this is not all; for, when fishing with rod and line on such a coast, it frequently happens that we land some species of crab that has been attracted to our bait. The ordinary angler would regard such crab as an intruder, and, we are sorry to say, would often consider it his duty to crush the unfortunate crustacean beneath his foot. But it is far different with the naturalist. He favourably regards all creatures from which something may be learnt, and is as anxious, as a rule, to gather information concerning the habitats of one class as of another. ”

“ In these forests are endless varieties of birds--parrots, pigeons, and hummingbirds of every colour. Here, too, can be found land-crabs which much resemble sea-crabs in shape and manner of walking; but instead of finding a home under rocks and boulders, these crabs burrow in the forests, and once a year form themselves into a regiment and march down to the sea-coast for the purpose of depositing their young in the waters. ”

“ Several species of land crabs have been implicated as predators on bird chicks and eggs, and Atkinson [33] argues that land crabs may have made birds on tropical islands behaviorally more resilient to rats, than birds were on temperate islands, where land crabs are absent. ”

“ Our least deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity. ”

“ All land crabs in Oceania have marine larvae. Such life history limits dispersion inland, and likely makes crabs more vulnerable to terrestrial enemies because of the predictable, mass migrations they undertake to the coast for larval release. However, marine larvae also allow colonization of islands, where absence of many predators allows greater levels of ecological experimentation, and thus may be conducive to the evolution of increased terrestriality. ”

“ Of all the animated denizens of our sea-shores, there is perhaps none more generally familiar than the common green crab, or the shore-crab, as it is also popularly termed—the Carcinus Mænas of naturalists. Whether at high or low water, at ebb or flow, hiding under overshadowing weeds, or craftily sunk beneath the sand, this quaint, waddling, green-backed crustacean is to be found, equally active, and equally pugnacious. ”

“ They live in the weed of the rock-pools, and in the wet sand. These are the Shore Crabs; the large Edible Crabs are a different kind, and live mostly in deep water.
Shore Crabs are quarrelsome little creatures; the larger ones are always ready to gobble up the smaller ones, or to snatch their food and run away with it. If you put some dead mussels or fish in a pool, you will be amused at their antics. How they scramble and fight! Crabs do not believe in "table manners."
THE CRAB.
It is their taste for waste scraps of food that makes crabs of use in the sea. ”

“ I am as much pleased with the rustling of a simple crab, that runs for shelter, at my approach, into a [22] rocky crevice, or beneath a boulder, shaggy with corallines and sea-weed. He, too, while walking down some rural lane, may love to see a blackbird hastily woo the privacy of a hawthorn bush, or a frightened hare limp across his path, and strive to hide among the poppies in the corn-field; I am equally gratified with the sight of a simple razor-fish sinking into the sand, or with the flash of a silver-bodied fish darting across a rock-pool. ”

“ The sand around,—soft beneath and thinly crusted upon the surface,—is everywhere pierced with holes made by a beautifully mottled and semi-diaphanous crab, with hairy legs, big staring eyes, and milk-white claws;—while in the green sedges beyond there is a perpetual rustling, as of some strong wind bearing among reeds: a marvellous creeping of 'fiddlers,' which the inexperienced visitor might at first mistake for so many peculiar beetles, as they run about sideways, each with his huge single claw folded upon his body like a wing-case. ”

“ The multitudes of these crustaceans may have a considerable role, beneficial and otherwise, in present efforts to cover these white sand wastes with grass and trees.
Of all creatures which start life in the sea, hermit crabs have become best adapted to continual existence on land. Like others of their race they are shell-less and soft-bodied. For protection against enemies and against being dried out by the glaring sun, they live in houses—the abandoned shells of other sea creatures which have been cast ashore. ”

“ When you try to break them loose from the ledge they prove to be very firmly attached by their byssus, but they travel from one shelf to another when they need a change of food. It is not sand they are most afraid of. They can spit their nacre on it if it gets in their shells; but it is the little red crab that bothers them most. You know how often you find the crab living happily in the pearl-shell because when the oyster feeds he gets his share, and he is too active for the oyster to kill as it does the worm, by spitting its nacre on him and entombing him. ”

“ To catch these creatures requires some skill, two persons usually succeeding better than one, for the crab, when too closely pursued, quickly drops to the ground, even from a height of ten or fifteen feet, and escapes into a burrow, unless a net is dexterously interposed during his descent. Along the edges of the tidal stream near the head of the bay are found in great numbers prawns that are so transparent as to escape observation until they move; they dart about with such swiftness that it is difficult to take them in the net. ”

“ It is almost on the bottom, its tail stirs the weeds and is about to bend again, when with a rush the lurking enemy is upon it, seizes it between its fatal claws, and retiring backwards amidst the shelter which the violence of its sudden movement has partially removed, proceeds to devour it at its leisure. Such is the stratagem, and such the sure, if somewhat slow, result. All sorts of creatures are thus secured by the crab, including, perhaps, on special occasions, a small and less wary fish or so. ”

“ Of Crustacea, the Prawns and the smaller kinds of Crabs may be admitted to the aquarium, though but sparingly. They are rude, noisy, quarrelsome, and somewhat destructive,—but, for the same reason, amusing tenants of the tank.
All are familiar with the mode in which the Soldier or Hermit Crab takes possession of and lives in the shells of Whelks and Snails. Poorly protected behind by Nature, the homeless crab wanders about seeking a lodging. ”

“ Other species are intensely individualistic. Each excavates an elaborate labyrinth in the mud, considers this its own home, and vigorously defends it.
During courtship some of these mud crabs perform dances like the courtship dances of birds. The male of one variety, after attracting a mate by his dancing, picks her up bodily in one of his nippers and carries her away. Another variety of sand crab seems to have perfected an engineering technique which still evades human skill—that of building a burrow in soft, dry sand. ”