This page links to photos of Brachyuran crabs we have seen in the Marshall Islands. Many of our species remain unidentified and many names we do have are uncertain. Much of crab taxonomy depends upon close examination of the numerous appendages, something that is not easily done through in situ photographs of the living animal. We welcome corrections or suggestions at uwkwaj@yahoo.com. The Brachyurans constitute the larger of the two main groups of crabs at Kwajalein. The other group. the Anomurans, consisting of hermit crabs, porcelain crabs and squat lobsters, are covered elsewhere on this site. Like the Anomurans, we show only a sampling of the Brachyuran species found in the Marshalls. A checklist of crabs from Enewetak Atoll based on multiple collections over the years is presented by Garth et al (1987) and records some 291 species, which is considerably more than we cover here. No doubt there are many more to be found even beyond the Enewetak checklist.
Measurements were not taken in the field and animals were not collected, so any sizes given are very rough eyeball estimates often based on distant memories, and are provided only as a general guideline of what to look for. Unless otherwise noted, our crab measurements are estimated widths of the carapace, not including the appendages, which may be much longer. The thumbnails below link to pages with additional, larger photographs.
From photos in references and on the web, specimens of Aethra, or potato chip crabs, appear to be somewhat variable in texture, and sometimes even in color. We have sorted the ones we see into different forms and tentatively assigned some names based on what we see in the literature. However, it is possible that all of these are variations of one or two species.
These are the box crabs. They live in sandy areas, buried by day and often out on top of the sand at night. Powerful pincers are used to break up mollusk shells.
The rear pair of legs of dromiid crabs is situated so that they can be used to hold something over the crab's shell, often a sponge but sometimes tunicates, clumps of soft coral, algae or any other item that may help to shield the crab from predators. Because there are numerous species in the family and critical taxonomic details of the crab are difficult or impossible to observe without a specimen in hand, most of our identifications are tentative and should not be taken as positivie IDs.
Land crabs.
Swimming crabs.
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