Metopaulias
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Metopaulias depressus |
Metopaulias is a genus of fully terrestrial land crabs which do not require to go back to the sea to spawn.
Metopaulias depressus is a small (2 centimeters, three quarters of an inch across) reddish-brown crab which lives in the pools of water which form in the leaves of bromeliads in Jamaica. Unlike other crabs, the female lays only 90 or so eggs, then tends to her offspring, removing dead leaves which would deoxygenate the water and adding snail shells to the pool to provide high levels of calcium which they require, catching cockroaches and millipedes to feed them, and killing larvae of the Diceratobasis macrogaster damselfly which would otherwise eat them.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ "Pineapple Dreams", The Wild Side, Olivia Judson, The New York Times, March 18, 2008
[edit] External Links
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