A pale burrowing crab with paddle legs and a long spine on each side of the shell.
A moon crab with a smooth domed carapace to about 5 cm wide, cream to pale yellow and finely dotted in red or purple, with a long sharp spine projecting from each side. All five pairs of legs end in flattened paddles, the claws included, which is what lets the animal both swim and bury itself in a few seconds.
It lies buried in open sand with only the eyes and the front margin showing, and comes out at night to hunt small crustaceans and molluscs. Disturbed, it either swims off in a short burst or drops and disappears into the sediment. The flower moon crab shares the ground and the shape; the two are separated on the carapace markings, which here are finer and more evenly scattered. Recorded from the shallows to about 15 m.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
