Mictyris

Mictyris
Mictyris
Light-blue soldier crab, Mictyris longicarpus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Infraorder: Brachyura
Superfamily: Ocypodoidea
Family: Mictyridae
Dana, 1851
Genus: Mictyris
Latreille, 1806
Species

Mictyris is a genus of brightly coloured crabs, placed in its own taxonomical family, the Mictyridae.[1] It inhabits the central Indo-West Pacific region. These crabs will congregate on mud flats or beaches in groups of a few thousand, and filter sand or mud for microscopic organisms. They congregate during low tide, and bury themselves in the sand during high tide or whenever they are threatened. This is done in wet sand, and they dig in a corkscrew pattern, leaving many small round pellets of sand behind them.

Mictyris longicarpus en masse, on mud flats, Gold Coast, Australia

References

  1. ^ Peter K. L. Ng, Danièle Guinot & Peter J. F. Davie (2008). "Systema Brachyurorum: Part I. An annotated checklist of extant Brachyuran crabs of the world" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 17: 1–286. http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/rbz/biblio/s17/s17rbz.pdf. 

External links


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