Box Crab-Face shamed crab

Description:

Box crabs or shame-faced crabs. The name box crab comes from their distinctly bulky carapace, and the name shame-faced is from anthropomorphising the way the crab's chelae (claws) fold up and cover its face, as if it were hiding its face in shame.

Notes:

The Shame-faced Crab rests inactively – sometimes for several days – in a sandy burrow just obtruding its eyes, antennae and upper parts of carapace and forceps. The large forceps will form a breathing cave behind them, hampering sand to run in. This attitude combined with the dorsal colour pattern will make a perfect camouflage. If it runs then it uprights its body and straitens its legs. To bury it presses its forceps against the ground like planks and pushes itself obliquely backwards into the substrate. It feeds on mollusks. The specially formed forceps are well adapted to pick snails apart and strong enough to crack their shells. Females lay their eggs from June to September. The Shame-faced Crab is popular seafood, e.g. in Greece, Italy and Spain, although not very common.