Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Crabs, Crabs.....

I'm having a walk at the newly opened CJ Boardwalk on Sunday morning. This is my first trip there since the opening. I'll put up more about it later.

During the boardwalk, noticed 2 strange but interesting behaviour about crabs.
There are lots of vinegar crab (Episesarma) and is known to be 'vegetarian' as they usually eat leaves and some times scavenging.
This crab that we was observing, show us his tadpole catching skill. He actually catch the live tadpole for food instead of go scavenging or eat leaves! What a big surprise.
All the while I always believe that the enlarged pincer or claw of male fiddler crab can not use for feeding. That's the reason the male crabs feed twice slower than female crab. This believes of mine was challenged when we saw this fiddler crab actually using his BIG, BIG pincer to feed!!! After observe for a while, found out that this male crab has lost his left pincer. So he is using the only left behind enlarge pincer for feeding.
Is it because this crab is forced to learn to use the big pincer for feeding or just happen that he got a deformed pincer? If you look carefully, you will notice that the big pincer is sightly bend outward.
Mmmhh... crabs change their diet habits like humans too... (high protein diet?) ha ha

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