One of the Critters that really has a suiting name is the Candy Crab (Or if you want to use the more boring names you can also call it Soft Coral Crab or Holophrys oatesii) … it really looks like a colourful piece of Candy. These Crabs grow to about 2 Read more…
All divers interested in critters sooner or later will get interested in crustaceans. Some of the crustaceans are considered “must see” items, such as harlequin shrimp, tiger shrimp, several of the extremely small shrimp recently found here in Lembeh, emperor shrimp and a host of other shrimp. The keyword here is shrimp. Crabs on the other hand seldom elicit the same interest from divers. However, many crabs have at least as interesting life styles as shrimp, and many are also colorful and attractive, such as the amazing xeno crabs.
Xeno crab
As those of you that have read my earlier posts might already understand, one of the aspects I find the most interesting when diving is the close symbiotic relationship between many marine animals, where one animal provides another animal with living quarters. Most crabs are free living and do not show symbiotic relationships to other animals. In contrast, here in Lembeh some really fascinating examples of symbiosis between crabs and other animals can be studied. (more…)
Being an animal is being filled with protein and fat! That is probably the scariest fact small animals have to face. Protein and fat is on the whole extremely uncommon in nature. Compared to the ubiquitous carbohydrates, which plants just require some sun and some fancy chemistry to create, protein Read more…
On todays morning dive at Nudi Falls i found this cool crab. It is a very weird looking elbow crab whose colour and shape strongly remind of a skull – even though the shape is not really human … rather the one of the stereotypic Alien. So i will call Read more…
Lembeh Strait is a Muckdiving paradise – and it has many interesting habitats to offer. Algae, Sand, Rubble, Coral, Rocks and Sponges. This week i took 3 nice photos with different animals all living on the same type of sponge – i just realized that, when going through my pictures of this Read more…
Today is boxing day – so what could be a better Critter to write about than the Boxer Crab (Lybia tesselata, Pom Pom Crab or Mosaic Boxer Crab). But not only does its name fit the date. It is also a very popular Critter here in Lembeh – specially if Read more…
It is quite amazing that even though i already work in Lembeh for several years, i can still find new things – and this is why i love this place so much. Yesterday we went to our second morning dive at Tandu Rusa to look for two little Shaggy Frogfishes Read more…
This week we did a lot of housereef diving here at NAD Lembeh and found many cool things – squids, shrimps, nudibranches, Lembeh Sea Dragons, Stonefish, Spearing Mantis, Twin Spot Gobies, Double Ended Pipefish, Sponge Crabs, Baby Baracudas and much more. The day before yesterday i went for another housereef Read more…