Much Better Pic of my Shrimp/Crab Please Help

[Jawbone]

I have been trying to take a picture of this tiny little guy he just sits there with his claws hanging outside of this very small hole. I have been feeding it brine shrimp and 1 brine shrimp is as large as the whole he sits in. All he eats is one brine shrimp as well. It has two long antenna that kinda looks like a long skinny paddle with a whole bunch of ladder rungs holding it all together and his eyes I think they are eyes are also long vertically about 1 or 2mm and kinda green his claws are white with brown or maroon spots. This pic is taken using a digital camera but I am having a terrible time at trying to get a clear image.

anyway if anyone recognizes this please respond

you can sorta make out the critter just sitting there with his two claws out and looking around

Here is the same critter

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: Jawbone ]</p>

 

[Union]

Nice looking crab you have there.Try this.Place an small, empty snail/crab shell fairly close to him and see if he transfers over and makes it his new home.

 

[clcurtis]

It looks like a small filter-feeding hermit. They're common on porites/christmas tree worm rocks. I had a couple for about a year before they disappeared. At mt LFS, I saw several small colonies of them with a different species on each rock. Mine would happily feed of flake food.

 

[Jawbone]

Great call on the x-mas tree coral
Well I would like to say it was a hermit crab but I cannot see it. With those long sweeping antenna used to grab food and those long front claws I just cant see it.

here is a pic of a crab that lives under the same piece of x-mas tree coral ( If you look on that pic above behind the shrimp and off to the left there is a clam or mussle or something that also opens and closes I assume a filter feeding clam )

This one x-mas tree rock had so many hitchhikers that I see new ones every week

 

[davelin315]

It's a hermit crab. It's a species that lives in porites and basically never leaves. It basically gets grown in. It's harmless, but really cool, and, it will stay put.