Abstract
AT the last meeting of the Linnean Society I exhibited a number of crabs and certain shells of the genus Phorus having various foreign substances attached to them, about which it is desirable that more should be known. Some of the crabs manage to fasten bits of sea-weed to the hairs on the carapace and legs; Polyzoa, Balani, Serpulæ, &c., in their earlier stages fasten them-selves on others; a crab of the Indian Seas—Camposcia retusa—is sometimes completely covered on every part with sand, small shells, and bits of sea-weed—Corallina chiefly. These could only be attached by some adhesive matter, but whence derived? Dromia vulgaris is occasionally found with a sponge extending over the carapace and almost completely hiding the animal. The species of this genus have the two hinder pairs of legs much reduced, flattened, and lying close to the back, and this is assumed to be an adaptation for the purpose of retaining the sponge. Out of a number of specimens dredged in the Bay of Naples, I recollect only getting one with a sponge on it, and that very soon shrivelled up, leaving a leathery-looking substance attached to the base of the carapace, not held by the legs apparently.1 Two crabs—Æthusa mascarone and Dorippe lanata—having similarly reduced hind-legs, but directed upwards, seem much better adapted for retaining a foreign substance, which, however, they are not known to do. In a Mauritian crab—Dynomene hispida—the hind pair only are reduced, but to such an extent as to be merely rudimentary and incapable of any use. Paramithrax barbutus—a New Zealand crab—has, like some others, hooked hairs, but in the specimen exhibited they appear to be free of any foreign substances, although many small fragments of an uncertain nature appear between them.
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PASCOE, F. Foreign Substances attached to Crabs. Nature 41, 176 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/041176a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/041176a0
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