The red rock crab (''Guinusia chabrus'') is a marine large-eyed

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

of the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Plagusiidae The Plagusiidae are a family (biology), family of crabs, formerly treated as a subfamily of the family Grapsidae, but have since been considered sufficiently distinct to be a family in their own right. The family Plagusiidae used to include a sub ...

. It is found in the southern

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Associated with India * of or related to India ** Indian people ** Indian diaspora ** Languages of India ** Indian English, a dialect of the English language ** Indian cuisine Associated with indigenous peoples o ...

and southern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

s, including

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

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 ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

Description

A sturdy square bodied crab with a smooth dark red-brown carapace and yellow longitudinal ridges on the legs, yellow knobs on the pincers. There may be four white spots on the carapace in a roughly semicircular pattern.

Distribution

Southern Africa: Luderitz to Sodwana Bay, Subtidal to at least 100m.Jones, Georgina. ''A field guide to the marine animals of the Cape Peninsula.'' SURG, Cape Town, 2008. It is also found in the intertidal zone, such as a rocky shore environment in New Zealand and Australia

Ecology

Common on reefs. Often seen in crevices or hiding under other benthic organisms. Scavenger. With '' Haliotis midae'' it makes up the favoured diet of ''

Octopus vulgaris The common octopus (''Octopus vulgaris'') is a Mollusca, mollusk belonging to the class Cephalopoda. ''Octopus vulgaris'' is one of the most studied of all octopus species, and also one of the most intelligent. It ranges from the eastern Atlanti ...

'' in

False Bay False Bay (Afrikaans: ''Valsbaai'') is a body of water in the Atlantic Ocean between the mountainous Cape Peninsula and the Hottentots Holland Mountains in the extreme south-west of South Africa. The mouth of the bay faces south and is demarc ...

, South Africa.

References

External links

Closeup image on Flickr
Grapsoidea Marine fauna of Southern Australia Crustaceans of the eastern Pacific Ocean Crustaceans described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Grapsoidea-stub