Pilumnus hirtellus

Erling Svensen The Pilumnus hirtellus crab, with some strange hydroids (?) on the back. I see on my pictures of this crab that almost all of them have these strange small "trees". Is it a hydroid, or something else?

Marco Faasse They are club-shaped hairs, typical for this crab. Very strange indeed.

Erling Svensen Thanks Marco. Very strange - but really nice.

João Pedro Silva Shot a close relative last August. It's really "hairy": http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/7864007158/

Cathal McNaughton Broad Clawed Porcelain crab? Doesnt look like a Pilumnus hirtellus????? Really small so hard to know.

Andy Horton Long-clawed Porcelain Crab

Andy Horton Anomuran, eight visible legs, including claws

Cathal McNaughton Thanks Andy, its a new species to me. It was found in a kelp holdfast that I dragged ashore on my fishing line. There were jet black gammarus type crustaceans on it too but they escaped unphotgraphed. Colour probably just a result of the environment rather than their species.

Andy Horton cf. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.469904919705629&type=1#!/photo.php?fbid=10150914536879065&set=oa.469904919705629&type=1&theater

Cathal McNaughton Fantastic photo Andy, thanks for sharing.

Andy Horton Amphipod. The Cornish coast is so much better than Sussex. 7 May 2012 A short trip to Kingston Beach on a cool evening low spring tide produced a sparse mobile fauna including two small Common Starfish Asterias rubens on the underside of the larger boulders with a chiton Acanthochitona crinita and a Sting Winkle Ocenebra erinacea as noteworthy discoveries. One small Edible Crab, Cancer pagurus, and at least one Hairy Crab, Pilumnus hirtellus, was noted with small prawns only in the pools. Juvenile (first year) Blennies, Lipophrys pholis, were frequently found under boulders on the estuarine (west of the Lifeboat Station) part of the beach. http://www.glaucus.org.uk/Kingston2008.htm

Douglas Herdson Hi, I should be grateful for an identification of this xanthid (?) crab from Lundy Island.

Andy Horton It is one of the Xantho ones. Some books should a different generic name nowadays. I used the know which is which out of the two species.

George Brown Hi Douglas, Marlin advises: "Xantho pilipes, is most readily distinguished from Xantho incisus by dense fringes of setae on the lateral and posterior margins of the carapace and on the walking legs." I can't see these fringes on your photos. Hope that helps.

Andy Horton Notes I made in 1992: The usual shore populations of common invertebrates were present, but also the southern species of crab Xantho incisus which was very common under boulders. There are two species of Xantho crab from British seas. The specimens found at Marazion had white claws and a chocolate brown carapace, but colour is not the distinguishing guide - the same species could also have black claws. The back legs lacked the bristles or setae that are found on Xantho pilipes. The diet of this crab is not well known, but it will eat smaller crabs of other species including the Hairy Crab, Pilumnus hirtellus.

Andy Horton I have only found Xantho incisus.

David Fenwick Snr Xantho pilipes Doug.

George Brown Hi David, can you see "fringes of setae" in Douglas's photo which would make it X. pilipes? Am I looking in the right place?

David Fenwick Snr Hi George,click on the image of the carapace, the one on the right, the fringe is there.

George Brown This shows the fringe I was looking for. Guess it's not so obvious out the water.

Douglas Herdson Thanks folks, I had made it Xantho pilipes, but I do not think it had been recorded on Lundy; and am not familiar with the two species.

Douglas Herdson George, you can see the fringe better in this photo, it was not as obviously hairy as I had expected.

Andrew Cleave Both species quite common on Scilly - have found them on St Mary's, including females carrying eggs. Pincer colour can vary, however.

Douglas Herdson Thanks Andrew, I did not have time to look at the crabs when I was on Scilly. I have always questioned that brown tip or black tip feature. Did you find any Xanthos in your 2010 survey on Lundy?

Beccy MacDonald Hi Douglas Herdson, we regularly find Xantho incisus so this is a good find. Do you mind if I copy your photos from here and add the finding into our marine logbook? Could you also tell me when and where you found it? The images look as though it was in the Devils Kitchen. Beccy (Lundy Warden) :)

Douglas Herdson Hi Beccy, Will send you decent photos. Also found a Corkwing wrasse nest - details in the marine log - mid shore Devil's Kitchen 6th July.

Beccy MacDonald Thanks Douglas Herdson :)

Beccy MacDonald We found one today too! Along with Xantho hydrophilus :)

Andy Horton Xantho hydrophilus (also known as Xantho incisus and various other scientific names)

Cathal McNaughton Hi, is this crab Hyas araneus and if so is it also known as the 'toad crab' in English, or does that name only relate to Hyas coarctatus? I think this is a male Hyas araneus (shorter legs than female) based on line drawingas from 'A Key to the Crabs and Crab-like Animals of British Inshiore Waters' by John and Marilyn Crothers, reprinted 1988. Any assistance much appreciated.

Douglas Herdson Best thing, Cathal, is to send photos and details to Dr Paul Clark at the Natural History Museum who wrote "North East Atlantic Crabs: an atlas to distribution".

Cathal McNaughton Thanks Douglas, Dr Paul Clark sounds like the man to speak to, I always called these crabs spider crabs until a few years ago, maybe they are spider crabs but they arent the red coloured ones that grow quite big-Spiney spider crab?

Cathal McNaughton Thanks for the recommendation Douglas.

Cathal McNaughton Hi Dawn, know what you mean, theyre usually festooned with algae/weed and all over pretty furry looking, this one wqas washed up dead on the beach so it may have been washed around a bit first and lost its 'coat'? Going by the drawings in that book, this one definitely resembles araneus much more than coarctatus.

Cathal McNaughton Thanks for this Dawn, at this stage I'm not 100% sure I encontered the term Toad crab before, I possibly saw it refered to as Sea Toad and amazing memory produced the Toad crab name?!?!? Thanks for this, I'll do bit more googling. I'll see what is on MarLIN, cheers.

Cathal McNaughton Thats a nice image Dawn, this one has quite a carpet growing on it but appears to be araneus for sure- carapace more tapered towards the front end, good pic.

Andy Horton I have never received a report of Hyas from the shore anywhere around Britain and I have not had one reported by divers on fishermen off Sussex. However, they are probably overlooked or mistaken for other species. A fine discovery. Pity about the missing legs.

Andy Horton What other crabs are in the picture?

Nicolas Jouault Seen around Jersey, seem to have seen more in recent years. They move fairly slow, so they can be overlooked.

Cathal McNaughton Hi Andy, you helped me ID the 2 below the araneus, the one on the left is the hairy crab (Pilumnus hirtellus) and I think the one on the right is the grey swimming crab, which is possibly the same as the vernal crab (Liocarcinus vernalis?), sorry but I'm not certain about that 2nd one I mentioned, maybe you could refresh my memory?????? The one to its left is an edible crab and there is a prawn and lobster there too.

Cathal McNaughton Ive found quite a few of these over the years, usually just a carapace, seen an occasional live one, have another specimen photographed the same day which has far longer legs and I think that means a female?

Andy Horton Can we see the photograph of the other one please?

Andy Horton It is easy to get this species mixed up with Pisa. And easy to get the two species of Pisa mixed up as well. And even Pisa can be confused with other species. The earlier books were misleading. The books I was brought up on.

Cathal McNaughton Andy what is Pisa's full title please? So I can have a look for it online.

Cathal McNaughton Sorry should have looke dmy book 1st, it gives Pisa armata on its own as far as I can see, yes I see the similarity.

Andy Horton Pisa armata, Pisa tetraodon. I am pretty sure the above are Hyas. Hyas I have never found to be a common and widespread species.

Andy Horton http://www.seawater.no/fauna/arthropoda/araneus.html

Thorleif Sørvik very nice Hairy crab, Pilumnus hirtellus