Welcome!

Welcome!

To start, I have some pictures and a challenge for you. We'll save the official introduction for another day.

The first time I saw one of these crabs, with its carapace gleaming in the summer sun, I thought it was a plastic toy, left along the road by a child. Further down the road I saw a few more. Unless they came by the bagfull, like little green soldiers, I decided they weren't toys. Then my eyes started to play tricks on me. A brief bustle caught my attention, but a closer look showed nothing.

It wasn't until we set up camp in a tropical dry forest along the Pacific coast that I finally spotted these crabs in action. A few would be out and about during the day, but after dark the crabs came out in droves. As they scuttled across the fallen leaves, it sounded like rain falling in the night. And as you can see, they can climb trees. They could move fast, and they were very defensive. When the crabs were on the ground, I could not get a picture of their shell. They would raise their pincers, stare up at me, and dance away, like a prize fighter, never letting me have a clear shot at their backside.

Now for the challenge: Where was I? What is a common name for this crab? What is its scientific name? (Hint: two words in Latin.) And finally, what phylum of invertebrates do they belong to? (Hint to my students: think about your class at Mote Marine.) What do they eat? Where do they spend their days?

Post the answers here, and I'll share another picture. I'll also tell the story of the stowaway crab!