| Loxorhynchus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Sheep crab, Loxorhynchus grandis | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Suborder: | Pleocyemata |
| Infraorder: | Brachyura |
| Family: | Epialtidae |
| Subfamily: | Pisinae |
| Genus: | Loxorhynchus Stimpson, 1857 [1] |
| Species | |
See text | |
Loxorhynchus is a genus of crabs of the eastern Pacific Ocean in the family Epialtidae.
The fiddler crab or calling crab may be any of more than one hundred species of semiterrestrial marine crabs in the family Ocypodidae, well known for their sexually dimorphic claws; the males' major claw is much larger than the minor claw, while the females' claws are both the same size. A smaller number of ghost crab and mangrove crab species are also found in the family Ocypodidae. This entire group is composed of small crabs, the largest being slightly over two inches (5 cm) across. Fiddler crabs are found along sea beaches and brackish intertidal mud flats, lagoons, swamps, and various other types of brackish or salt-water wetlands.
Xanthidae is a family of crabs known as gorilla crabs, mud crabs, pebble crabs or rubble crabs. Xanthid crabs are often brightly coloured and are highly poisonous, containing toxins which are not destroyed by cooking and for which no antidote is known. The toxins are similar to the tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin produced by puffer fish, and may be produced by bacteria in the genus Vibrio living in symbiosis with the crabs, mostly V. alginolyticus and V. parahaemolyticus.
The Ocypodoidea, or ocypoid crabs, are a superfamily of crabs, named after the genus Ocypode. It contains over 300 extant species in these eight families:
Clibanarius is a genus of hermit crabs in the family Diogenidae. Like other hermit crabs, their abdomen is soft-shelled and sheltered in a gastropod shell. Typically marine like all their relatives, the genus includes C. fonticola, the only known hermit crab species that spends all its life in freshwater. The feeding rates of Clibanarius species change with temperature which, given their broad distributions, may have considerable consequences for the stability reef systems as sea temperatures rise in the future.
Portunidae is a family of crabs which contains the swimming crabs. Its members include many well-known shoreline crabs, such as the blue crab and velvet crab. Two genera in the family are contrastingly named Scylla and Charybdis; the former contains the economically important species black crab and Scylla paramamosain.
Pagurus is a genus of hermit crabs in the family Paguridae. Like other hermit crabs, their abdomen is not calcified and they use snail shells as protection. These marine decapod crustaceans are omnivorous, but mostly prey on small animals and scavenge carrion. Trigonocheirus and Pagurixus used to be considered subgenera of Pagurus, but the former is nowadays included in Orthopagurus, while the latter has been separated as a distinct genus.
Dromiidae is a family of crabs, often referred to as sponge crabs. They are small or medium-sized crabs which get their name from the ability to shape a living sponge into a portable shelter for themselves. A sponge crab cuts out a fragment from a sponge and trims it to its own shape using its claws. The last two pairs of legs are shorter than other legs and bend upward over the crab's carapace, to hold the sponge in place. The sponge grows along with the crab, providing a consistent shelter.
Johngarthia is a genus of crabs in the land crab family Gecarcinidae, formerly included in the genus Gecarcinus, and containing six species. The genus bears the name of John S. Garth, a 20th century naturalist who specialized in crabs and other arthropods.
Dardanus is a genus of hermit crabs belonging to the Diogenidae family.
Pilumnoidea is a superfamily of crabs, whose members were previously included in the Xanthoidea. The three families are unified by the free articulation of all the segments of the male crab's abdomen and by the form of the gonopods. The earliest fossils assigned to this group are of Eocene age.
Inachidae is a family of crabs, containing 39 genera:
Grimothea is a genus of squat lobsters in the family Munididae.
Leucosiidae is a family of crabs containing three subfamilies and a number of genera incertae sedis:
Pagurus samuelis, the blueband hermit crab, is a species of hermit crab from the west coast of North America, and the most common hermit crab in California. It is a small species, with distinctive blue bands on its legs. It prefers to live in the shell of the black turban snail, and is a nocturnal scavenger of algae and carrion.
Emerita analoga, the Pacific sand crab, Pacific mole crab or coldwater mole crab, is a species of small, sand-burrowing decapod crustacean found living in the sand along the temperate western coasts of North and South America. It is found on exposed sandy beaches in the swash region of the intertidal zone.
The Panopeidae are a family containing 26 genera of morphologically similar crabs, often known as "mud crabs". Their centers of diversity are the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Pacific Ocean.
Loxorhynchus grandis, commonly known as the sheep crab or spider crab, is a species of crab in the family Epialtidae. It is the largest crab found on the California coast. The species was first described to science by William Stimpson in 1857. The type specimen was collected on the coast of California, near San Francisco. Fossils from the late Miocene epoch indicate that this species is at least 11.63 to 5.333 million years old.
Exosphaeroma is a genus of marine isopod of the family Sphaeromatidae. This genus is found in shallow ocean waters worldwide. It is notable for being one of the few genera of sphaeromatid to be found in the southern reaches of the Southern Ocean. The greatest diversity of Exosphaeroma occurs in the Southern Hemisphere.
Johngarthia planata is a bright orange species of land crab that lives on inshore islands and the continental mainland coast of the tropical and subtropical Pacific coast of the Americas, including the Gulf of California, Costa Rica, Colombia, and continental mainland beaches of Mexico. The crabs are omnivorous and feed on seaweed (algae), vegetation and sometimes carrion.
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