''Dardanus megistos'', the white-spotted hermit crab or spotted hermit crab, is a species of

hermit crab Hermit crabs are anomuran Decapoda, decapod crustaceans of the superfamily (taxonomy), superfamily Paguroidea that have adapted to occupy empty scavenged mollusc shells to protect their fragile exoskeletons. There are over 800 species of hermit c ...

belonging to the family

Diogenidae The Diogenidae are a family of hermit crabs, sometimes known as "left-handed hermit crabs" because in contrast to most other hermit crabs, its left chela (claw) is enlarged instead of the right. It comprises 429 extant species, and a further 46 ...

Etymology

The genus name '' Dardanus'' refers to the son of

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

and

Electra Electra, also spelt Elektra (; ; ), is one of the most popular Greek mythology, mythological characters in tragedies.Evans (1970), p. 79 She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, ''Electra (Sophocles play), Electra'' by Sophocles and ''Ele ...

in Greek mythology, while the species name ''megistos'' is the superlative of the Greek word ''mega'', therefore it means ''the largest''.

Distribution

This species is present in the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

region from East

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

to the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and east to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

Habitat

These tropical reef-associated crabs occur in coral reef, lagoons, rocky platforms, sand and seagrass beds, from littoral and subtidal zones to deep waters, at depths up to 50 m. Sealife Base
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Description

''Dardanus megistos'' can reach a body length of about . These large crabs have a bright red body with small white eyespots surrounded by black. Their bodies are covered with long erect coarse hairs of a dark red color. They have a pair of long white primary antennae or antennules, a pair of secondary antennae, stalked green brown eyes and three pairs of mouth appendages. The stalks of the eyes are reddish with a basal white spot. The soft, asymmetrical abdomen is spiral-shaped, useful in keeping in the shell, with a five-piece tail (

telson The telson () is the hindmost division of the body of an arthropod. Depending on the definition, the telson is either considered to be the final segment (biology), segment of the arthropod body, or an additional division that is not a true segm ...

and

uropods Uropods are posterior appendages found on a wide variety of crustaceans. They typically have functions in locomotion. Definition Uropods are often defined as the appendages of the last body segment of a crustacean. An alternative definition sugge ...

). Like all decapod crustaceans, they have ten legs. The first pair of legs carries the pincers ( chelipeds). The left plier is bigger than the right one.DORIS - Données d'Observations pour la Reconnaissance et l'Identification de la faune et la flore Subaquatiques

Biology

The white-spotted hermit crabs are gonochorics, the eggs are carried on the female's abdomen. They also are opportunistic omnivore, mainly feeding on small invertebrates (worms, molluscs, etc.) and they are also reported to feed on holothurians. Commonly these crabs perform a precopulatory courtship ritual. Usually the sperm transfer is indirect. They may live up to 30 years. These crustaceans usually inhabit a large shell of a gastropod, consequently only the

cephalothorax The cephalothorax, also called prosoma in some groups, is a tagma of various arthropods, comprising the head and the thorax fused together, as distinct from the abdomen behind. (The terms ''prosoma'' and ''opisthosoma'' are equivalent to ''cepha ...

and the first three pairs of legs are visible.

Gallery

File:Dardanus megistos at Gilli Lawa Laut.JPG, ''D. megistos'' at Komodo,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

File: Diogenidae - Dardanus megistos.jpg, ''D. megistos'' at

Maldives The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, and historically known as the Maldive Islands, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in South Asia located in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives is southwest of Sri Lanka and India, abou ...

File:Reef0616 - Flickr - NOAA Photo Library.jpg, ''D. megistos'' at Northwest Hawaiian Islands File: Dardanus.jpg, ''D. megistos'' at Aliguay Island

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

Bibliography

*Barnes, D.K.A. and R.J. Arnold 2001 Ecology of subtropical hermit crabs in S.W. Madagascar: cluster structure and function. Mar. Biol. 139:463-474. *Fize, A. & Serène, R. 1955. Les Pagures du Vietnam. Vietnam : Institut Océanographique de Nhatrang 228 pp., 6 pls. *Liu, J.Y. uiyu(ed.). (2008). Checklist of marine biota of China seas. China Science Press. 1267 pp. *McLaughlin, P. A.; Komai, T.; Lemaitre, R.; Rahayu, D.L. (2010). Annotated checklist of anomuran decapod crustaceans of the world (exclusive of the Kiwaoidea and families Chirostylidae and Galatheidae of the Galatheoidea. Part I – Lithodoidea, Lomisoidea and Paguroidea. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Suppl. 23: 5-107. *Milne Edwards, H. 1848. Sur quelques nouvelles espèces du genre Pagure. Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Paris 10: 59-64 *Olivier, A.G. 1811. Pagure. pp. 636-649 in Olivier, A.G. (ed.). Encyclopédie Méthodique. Histoire Naturelle. Insectes. Paris : H. Agasse Vol. 8 772 pp. *Reay, P.J. & J. Haig (1990). Coastal hermit crabs (Decapoda: Anomura) from Kenya, with a review and key to East African species. Bulletin of Marine Science 46(3): 578-589 *Sakai, K. 1999. J. F. W. Herbst-Collection of decapod Crustacea of the Berlin Zoological Museum, with remarks on certain species. Naturalists, Tokushima Biological Laboratory, Shikoku University 6: 1-45 pls 1-21 *Tudge, C.C. 1995. Hermit Crabs of the Great Barrier Reef and Coastal Queensland. Brisbane : University of Queensland and Backhuys Publishers 40 pp.

References

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q29183 Diogenidae Crustaceans described in 1804 Articles containing video clips