A fiddler crab, sometimes known as a calling crab, may be any of more than one hundred species of semiterrestrial marine crabs in the family Ocypodidae. 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 and swamps. Fiddler crabs are most 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.
The Ocypodidae are a family of semiterrestrial crabs that includes the ghost crabs and fiddler crabs. They are found on tropical and temperate shorelines around the world.
Goneplax rhomboides is a species of crab. It is known by the common name angular crab because of its angular carapace. Although it is also called the square crab, its shell is in fact more trapezoidal than square. This species is also known as the mud-runner because they are able to run away quickly when threatened.
Minuca pugnax, commonly known as the Atlantic marsh fiddler crab, is a species of fiddler crab that lives on north-western shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
Austruca mjoebergi is a species of fiddler crab discovered by and named after the Swedish zoologist Eric Mjöberg (1882–1938), member of a Swedish scientific expedition to Australia in the early 1900s.
Austruca perplexa is a species of fiddler crab. It is found from the Ryukyu Islands, Japan to India, throughout the Malay Archipelago, along eastern Australian coasts from Queensland to New South Wales, and in various Pacific islands, including Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu.
Gelasimus vocans is a species of fiddler crab. It is found across the Indo-Pacific from the Red Sea, Zanzibar and Madagascar to Indonesia and the central Pacific Ocean. It lives in burrows up to 50 centimetres (20 in) deep. Several forms of U. vocans have been recognised, with their authors often granting them the taxonomic rank of full species or subspecies.
Afruca tangeri is a species of fiddler crab that lives along the Atlantic coasts of southwestern Europe and western Africa.
Paraleptuca chlorophthalmus, is a common fiddler crab found in the mangroves of East Africa, from Somalia to South Africa, as well as Madagascar and Mauritius. Marsh fiddlers dig burrows in the muddy or sandy banks of salt marshes, which they use to protect themselves from predators, high tide and extreme temperatures. They feed by filtering detritus out of mud, and defend their burrows against other fiddler crabs. Paraleptuca chlorophthalmus is characterised by its red pereiopods and blue and black markings on its carapace.
Austruca annulipes is a species of fiddler crab found along the coastline from South Africa to Somalia, Madagascar, India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Ocypode brevicornis is a species of ghost crab native to the Indian Ocean, from the Gulf of Oman to the Nicobar Islands. They are relatively large ghost crabs with a somewhat trapezoidal body. The carapace reaches a length of 41 mm (1.6 in) and a width of 50 mm (2.0 in). They are a mottled brown to yellow in coloration. Like other ghost crabs, one of their claws is much larger than the other. Their eyestalks are large and elongated, tipped with prolongations at the tip known as styles. They are common inhabitants of open sandy beaches, living in burrows in the intertidal zone.
Paraleptuca crassipes or the thick-legged fiddler crab is a species of fiddler crab that lives in intertidal habitats distributed across the western Pacific Ocean.
Charybdis natator, the ridged swimming crab, wrinkled swimming crab or rock crab, is a widespread Indo-Pacific species of swimming crab from the genus Charybdis. It gets its name from the ridges on the dorsal surface of the carapace. It is a crab species which is of minor importance in fisheries.
Charybdis hellerii, the Indo-Pacific swimming crab or spiny hands is a species of crab from the swimming crab family, the Portunidae. Its native range covers the Indian and Pacific Oceans but it has been introduced to the western Atlantic and has invaded the Mediterranean. It is a commercially exploited species in south-east Asia.
Charybdis longicollis, the lesser swimming crab, is a species of crab from the swimming crab family, the Portunidae. It has a native range which covers the north-western Indian Ocean and it has been invaded the Mediterranean Sea by Lessepsian migration through the Suez Canal.
Tubuca urvillei is a species of fiddler crab. It is found in the Southeastern Africa from southern Somalia to the South Africa and Madagascar.
Tubuca flammula, commonly known as the flame-backed fiddler crab is a species of fiddler crab that is found in the northwest of Western Australia, the northern part of the Northern Territory and the western half of Papua New Guinea
Leptuca thayeri, known generally as the Atlantic mangrove fiddler crab or mangrove fiddler, is a species of true crab in the family Ocypodidae. It is distributed all across the Western Atlantic.
Tubuca is a genus in Ocypodidae, a family of fiddler and ghost crabs. There are more than 20 described species in Tubuca.
Austruca is a genus of indo-west Pacific fiddler crabs in the family Ocypodidae. There are about 13 described species in this genus.
