MuseumMarine Blog

Creature Feature: Pandarus rhincodonicus

0 Aquatic Zoology blog | Updated 2 months ago

Even the biggest animals have fleas, and the mighty whale shark is no exception. Pandarus rhincodonicus, is a small crustacean, barely reaching one centimetre in length, belonging to a group of crustaceans known as copepods which are normally known to be free-living and a dominant group within planktonic communities. However, many species are bottom dwellers or parasites of other marine animals, particularly fish. Pandarus rhincodonicus was first discovered in WA and was only named and formally described in 2000.

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Creature Feature: Holy Crab! The crucifix crab Charybdis feriatus (Linneaus, 1758)

0 MuseumMarine blog | Updated 5 months ago

This large and colourful species of swimming crab is wide ranging in the tropical Indo-West Pacific from East Africa the Persian Gulf through to Indonesia and Japan, and throughout most of Australia. The crucifix crab lives in shallow sandy or rocky areas. In parts of its range, such as India, the crucifix crab forms a substantial commercial and recreational fishery but in Australia this species is quite rare and isn’t caught in large numbers by Australian crabbers.

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Creature Feature - Haunted Beaches: The fleet-footed Ghost Crabs

0 MuseumMarine blog | Updated 11 months ago

If you’ve ever walked along the many miles of beach in Western Australia, you may have seen large burrows high up on the shore, near the high tide line and beyond into the dunes. During the day you would be unlikely to find the animal responsible for these, unless you carried out some serious excavating yourself. At dusk, however, you may see the culprits emerge.

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Creature Feature: The Banded Boxer Shrimp

0 MuseumMarine blog | Updated 12 months ago

And in the red corner: The Banded Boxer Shrimp Stenopus hispidus (Olivier, 1811)

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Creature Feature: Tadpole Shrimp

0 MuseumMarine blog | Updated 1 years ago

Just add water: Tadpole shrimp Triops australiensis (Spencer & Hall, 1895)

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Creature Feature: Peacock Mantis Shrimp

0 MuseumMarine blog | Updated 1 years ago

Fight Club: the Peacock Mantis Shrimp Odontodactylus scyllarus (Linneaus, 1758)

Mantis Shrimp belong to a group of crustaceans, called stomatopods, only distantly related to shrimps and prawns you would normally see on your dinner plate. They get their common name from the enlarged second limb, referred to as the claw, which is very reminiscent of the front legs of the praying mantis. Much like the praying mantis in your back garden, mantis shrimp also use these limbs for capturing prey, with which they launch lightning fast attacks.

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Creature Feature: long-eyed swimmer crab

0 MuseumMarine blog | Updated 2 years ago

Podophthalmus vigil (Fabricius, 1798), the long-eyed swimmer crab.

There are approximately 100 species of swimming or paddle crabs in Australian waters, the most familiar being the tasty blue swimmer and mud crabs. The remarkable long-eyed swimmer crab is easily identified by its enormously long eye stalks – a feature not seen in any other species of Australian swimming crab. The long-eyed swimmer crab is found in shallow sandy or muddy areas in tropical regions of the Indo-Pacific, having been found from the Red Sea, South Africa to Japan and Hawaii.

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Creature Feature: The Japanese Shame-Faced Crab

0 MuseumMarine blog | Updated 2 years ago

The Japanese Shame-Faced Crab, Calappa japonica Ortmann, 1892.

The Japanese shame-faced crab was originally discovered in Tokyo Bay, Japan but has since been found as far away as Africa and can be found in depths up to ~250 m. This spectacular red and yellow crab was first reported in Western Australia only as recently as 1989 when crayfishers, off Rottnest Island, caught an unfortunate specimen in a craypot. The specimen in the photos was collected this year, near Ningaloo reef in 230 m.

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