Crab ID

Snoopdog

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He has been vacated to the sump anyway, because of the shape of the claws, but what is this?

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Snoopdog

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Most likely a coral eater
Most likely, but I really like to know everything I have. I am still searching for crabs around the Gulf of Mexico so I can find out what species this is. No luck so far. He does not look like a mithrax to me, the shell looks different. The claws do not look like a gorilla crab, even a juvenile one.
 
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BloopFish

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Looks like one that has a high chance of being OK. It looks like a relative of the common emerald mithrax crab. In the gulf of Mexico there are actually several species of Mithraculus crabs (same genus as the emerald crab), and I would wager it is one of them.

It looks most similar to a Mithraculus forceps. Some individuals are simply not as ruby or red as others and variations amongst individuals in a species is quite normal, especially for crabs. Yours looks like a young one. If you disagree, it could be in the Family Majidae or Mithracidae.

Here are two individuals of this species that are not as red as most. Crab 1 Crab 2
 

vetteguy53081

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Its a Pilumnus (hairy crab and Not reef safe. Me- to the toilet. You can place in sump to enjoy, but i'd rather not.
 

BloopFish

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Its a Pilumnus (hairy crab and Not reef safe. Me- to the toilet. You can place in sump to enjoy, but i'd rather not.
Definitely NOT Pilumnus. Carapace is not trapezoidal enough, and the claws are not large enough proportionally. Claws also don't have the nearly dark black/brown color on the tips. Appearance is more indicative of the Superfamily Majoidea.

I wouldn't advise killing a crab just because its hairy.
 

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Definitely NOT Pilumnus. Carapace is not trapezoidal enough, and the claws are not large enough proportionally. Claws also don't have the nearly dark black/brown color on the tips. Appearance is more indicative of the Superfamily Majoidea.

I wouldn't advise killing a crab just because its hairy.
Sump it as i suggested.
 

BloopFish

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I don't trust any hairy crab
You might as well say you trust basically none of the crabs in the hobby, since even emerald crabs have hairy legs at times. Only true crab common in the hobby that aren't hairy at all are like Acropora crabs
 

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You might as well say you trust basically none of the crabs in the hobby, since even emerald crabs have hairy legs at times. Only true crab common in the hobby that aren't hairy at all are like Acropora crabs
It was a lighthearted joke... man people lack the ability to have fun discussions.. :rolleyes:
 

BloopFish

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It was a lighthearted joke... man people lack the ability to have fun discussions.. :rolleyes:
Sorry, didn't mean to seem like I was attacking you. Please do not take it personally. I just did not want to let someone mistakenly make a decision from that statement, be it a joke or not (which is sometimes hard to tell through just text alone).

I'm just honestly tired of people being trigger happy on killing every single crab that is hairy when someone posts an ID request. It's our responsibility to proper research what we take from the ocean before we make a decision like that, or else it is pointless and irresponsible to do that.
 
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Sump it as i suggested.

It is going to get sumped no matter what, but I love watching things in the sump. Enjoying them also means knowing more about what they are, it is fun to research. Very few things do we kill. If nothing else we try to find a home for our creatures, even if it means setting up a nano.
 

BloopFish

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It is going to get sumped no matter what, but I love watching things in the sump. Enjoying them also means knowing more about what they are, it is fun to research.
I know some people use mithrax crabs or even other less reef safe crabs to trim their chaeto or caulerpa. Depending on how fast your chaeto grows, it can keep it reasonably trimmed down like a landscaper. That entirely depends on if you ended up with one that has a taste for macroalgae though.
 
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Looks like one that has a high chance of being OK. It looks like a relative of the common emerald mithrax crab. In the gulf of Mexico there are actually several species of Mithraculus crabs (same genus as the emerald crab), and I would wager it is one of them.

It looks most similar to a Mithraculus forceps. Some individuals are simply not as ruby or red as others and variations amongst individuals in a species is quite normal, especially for crabs. Yours looks like a young one. If you disagree, it could be in the Family Majidae or Mithracidae.

Here are two individuals of this species that are not as red as most. Crab 1 Crab 2

I think we may have a winner, strikingly close. Maybe just different because it is a juvenile? I think this guy came from the Florida Keys. He was probably smaller than a dime when we found him last night.
 

BloopFish

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I think we may have a winner, strikingly close. Maybe just different because it is a juvenile? I think this guy came from the Florida Keys. He was probably smaller than a dime when we found him last night.
I think so too, it may be because it is a juvenile or its diet made it so that they aren't as bright.

Also, from what I have read on KP Aquatics, they sometimes catch emerald crabs that are much hairier than normal emerald crabs - so something similar might be going on with your ruby crab? I haven't seen any literature with pictures identifying a separate species that look like the ones that they sell. Crab taxonomy hasn't really been updated much during this century.
 
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Snoopdog

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Well my sump is 12 gallons, tons of live rock down there and macro algae. Everything lives like kings there. This is why live rock is so awesome. We have gotten the coolest hitchhikers by using live rock all of these years. Sure you get something bad on occasion but that is easy to deal with. Accept no substitutes, go live.
 

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