Adorable Crab ID

[Zakary2003]

Found this little guy being kidnapped by my brand new baby sea urchin. I've never seen this crab before and I'm almost sure I didn't buy it. I haven't added any new rock or corals, just some snails, hermit crabs and the urchin. Any idea what it is? Please tell me he is reef safe because it is absolutely adorable. It is very small, about the size of my pinky finger nail.

 

[JoJosReef]

Cute! Not sure who the crab experts are here. @ISpeakForTheSeas any ideas?

 

[DJC]

Could be a pea crab ? Maybe

 

[Zakary2003]

Could be a pea crab ? Maybe

I'm not sure. It's close to the right shape but the colors seem off compared to google. Would that be reef safe?

 

[DJC]

I'm not sure. It's close to the right shape but the colors seem off compared to google. Would that be reef safe?

A pea crab is parasitic it lives off zooplankton and hides in mollusks etc

I just looked at google and yeah your right the pictures sort of don’t represent the colouring of the one you have found which means it may be a bigger crab species

 

[DJC]

Could be a coral crab baby

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Not an expert by any means, but it's likely it was living on your urchin by choice... There are many crustaceans that have such relationships with echinoderms. Not a definite answer but it's something to look into.

 

[Zakary2003]

Not an expert by any means, but it's likely it was living on your urchin by choice... There are many crustaceans that have such relationships with echinoderms. Not a definite answer but it's something to look into.

He's a bit big for me to have missed on the urchin. It's about half the urchins size. I guess it could have been living in the tank without a symbiotic urchin and then got with the urchin when it was added though

 

[DJC]

Could it be this one ?


If so coral crab
The thing with coral crabs is many of the coral crab species look different dependant on their environment so you will get variations of how they look

 

[DJC]

Hope and pray it’s not one of these as a baby
Devil crab
Very toxic and not one you want in your tank unless your an expert
I doubt it’s one of these though

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Cute! Not sure who the crab experts are here. @ISpeakForTheSeas any ideas?

Crabs can be really tough; I'm out of time tonight, but I'll try and give this one a look over tomorrow and see if I can't narrow it down a bit.

 

[Zakary2003]

Could it be this one ?


If so coral crab
The thing with coral crabs is many of the coral crab species look different dependant on their environment so you will get variations of how they look

Mine doesn't have eye stalls. It looks like those ones do. Mine just has two little eyes attached directly to the main body

 

[Shroom]

I can’t ID it but I kept something like this once and it changed on me and ended up being a gorilla crap now I’m trying to catch it…. . I would feed it to a trigger asap…..

 

[littlefoxx]

Found this little guy being kidnapped by my brand new baby sea urchin. I've never seen this crab before and I'm almost sure I didn't buy it. I haven't added any new rock or corals, just some snails, hermit crabs and the urchin. Any idea what it is? Please tell me he is reef safe because it is absolutely adorable. It is very small, about the size of my pinky finger nail.

If its not reef safe get a little pico tank for it! Its adorable!!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Found this little guy being kidnapped by my brand new baby sea urchin. I've never seen this crab before and I'm almost sure I didn't buy it. I haven't added any new rock or corals, just some snails, hermit crabs and the urchin. Any idea what it is? Please tell me he is reef safe because it is absolutely adorable. It is very small, about the size of my pinky finger nail.

Hard to tell on my phone screen but looks like a swimming crab (portunidae)

 

[Shroom]

If it’s not reef safe get a little pico tank for it! Its adorable!!

Sumping that thing would be a mercy that I wouldn’t grant it……. it’s not worth the risk dudes

 

[littlefoxx]

Sumping that thing would be a mercy that I wouldn’t grant it……. it’s not worth the risk dudes

Hence why I said a pico tank for it if OP wants to keep it

 

[Zakary2003]

It was definitely not reef safe. Unfortunately the adorable little dude has to go. I released him back into the tank (and I was closely watching it). It went after my nassarius snail and started trying to climb inside of it. Definitely some kind of parasitic pea crab. It probably came in on one of the new snails. I just hope it is the only one.

 

[littlefoxx]

It was definitely not reef safe. Unfortunately the adorable little dude has to go. I released him back into the tank (and I was closely watching it). It went after my nassarius snail and started trying to climb inside of it. Definitely some kind of parasitic pea crab. It probably came in on one of the new snails. I just hope it is the only one.

Awe shame he was so cute!