A hermit crab with a star pattern radiating across the eye, carrying anemones on its shell and out on open ground after dark.
Seven to thirteen centimetres. The field mark is the eye: a blue star-burst pattern radiating from the pupil across the surface of the cornea. The body is reddish with pale-tipped tubercles on the claws.
The giant hermit crab has no star eye and has red-and-white banded antennae.
One to forty metres on sand, rubble and reef margins. Left-handed and nocturnal, and it commonly carries anemones on its shell. It pinches.
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.