Coenobita purpureus (Okinawan/Ryukyuan Blueberry) Also Exist

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:25 am

Yes, These blueberry crabs of islands are no longer locally known because they are taken from the beach and kept as captive pets, Then, You know, They die without the right care, They are extremely endangered. I researched it.

Gab33 · Post by **Gab33** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:50 am

Aww I love them.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:48 pm

very pretty crabs!!

although all of the different regions and names and subspecies and all that confuses me to death

Post by **JediMasterThrash** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:21 pm

zenalisa wrote:very pretty crabs!!
although all of the different regions and names and subspecies and all that confuses me to death

This might help a little:
http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... evaluation

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:31 pm

JediMasterThrash wrote: This might help a little:
http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... evaluation

ah, enlightenment!

thanks! all the misidentification and plurals help narrow down the range of scientific names and such

dbolack · Post by **dbolack** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 5:07 pm

crabber wrote:I thought they were practically endanged and it was illegal to sell them.

I spent a good little bit of time trying to find any support for this belief a bit back and could not find any references to them being considered endangered internationally or nationally. There were a few dated ( though I have to doubt it's changed ) references to their habitat in certain parts of Japan being considered threatened and they also so for obvious reasons.

Can anyone provide an actual citation that Blueberries are *currently* threatened or endangered. "We won't sell 'em to foreigners" does not count.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Jun 14, 2009 10:37 pm

I am in love! I need to get some ASAP when the become available in the US.

Mokulele_Hawai'i · Post by **Mokulele_Hawai'i** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 11:49 am

JediMasterThrash wrote: This might help a little:
http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... evaluation

I opened that thread ... and it's quite informative. Here I make an update on the (existing) species list:

American species:
Coenobita clypeatus
Coenobita compressus

African & Indian Ocean species:
Coenobita scaevola ( also found in the Middle East )
Coenobita rubescens ( I still don't know how it looks like - declared as the single species existing on the western coast of Africa )
Coenobita brevimanus
Coenobita cavipes
Coenobita perlatus
Coenobita rugosus
Birgus latro

Southeast & North Asian species:
( Indonesia is the country with more land hermit crab species compared to other countries in the Pacific Rim )
Coenobita brevimanus
Coenobita cavipes
Coenobita perlatus
Coenobita purpureus
Coenobita rugosus
Coenobita violascens
Birgus latro

Australian species:
Coenobita variabilis
Coenobita perlatus

Southern & Northern Pacific species:
Birgus latro
Coenobita brevimanus
Coenobita rugosus
Coenobita spinosus
Coenobita perlatus

Today, I got a weird specimen ... perhaps an unknown species since it seems half ruggie & half blueberry although previously I saved the file as "Coenobita rugosus" ( I compared it with a fuly grown medium-sized blueberry / C.purpureus by placing them side by side ) :

kgbenson · Post by **kgbenson** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 12:03 pm

beech nut wrote:Yes, These blueberry crabs of islands are no longer locally known because they are taken from the beach and kept as captive pets, Then, You know, They die without the right care, They are extremely endangered. I researched it.

Do you have a reference for the claim that they are extremely endangered? I cannot find them on IUCNs website, the Japanese lists of endangered species etc.
Keith

Post by **JediMasterThrash** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 2:55 pm

I still have to go with Rugosus for the top crab in the pearl turbo. The eyes and sidemark and rll and body proportions are a match, and it's within the colors I've seen. Does it have the circular mark on the back?

In the next picture, with the two crabs, left in a green turbo, right in a brown turbo, the right crab appears to be a ruggie. The following picture showing them out of their shell supports this, seeing the pronounced bend in the bll, and the dorsal circle and sidemark.

Were these two the same crab, taken at different times?

Is the crab in the left green shell the blueberry?

Julia Coenobita · Post by **Julia Coenobita** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:35 pm

That's really cool...

Someone should get one or two crabs of every species and put them all together to see if any are actually sub-species and mate with eachother...

Maybe I should do that when I'm a hermit-crab-biologist when I'm older!

limeslide · Post by **limeslide** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:00 pm

Julia Coenobita wrote: That's really cool...

Someone should get one or two crabs of every species and put them all together to see if any are actually sub-species and mate with eachother... Maybe I should do that when I'm a hermit-crab-biologist when I'm older!

The eggs will be infertile .

Julia Coenobita · Post by **Julia Coenobita** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:22 pm

limeslide wrote: The eggs will be infertile .

Well if they are different species the eggs will be infertile.
If they are really sub-species then they could breed.

Mokulele_Hawai'i · Post by **Mokulele_Hawai'i** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:43 am

JediMasterThrash wrote:I still have to go with Rugosus for the top crab in the pearl turbo. The eyes and sidemark and rll and body proportions are a match, and it's within the colors I've seen. Does it have the circular mark on the back?

Yes, it has "O" letter on the carapace.

In the next picture, with the two crabs, left in a green turbo, right in a brown turbo, the right crab appears to be a ruggie.
The following picture showing them out of their shell supports this, seeing the pronounced bend in the bll, and the dorsal circle and sidemark.

Were these two the same crab, taken at different times?

No, they are different hermit crabs - one S and one M size.

Is the crab in the left green shell the blueberry?

Yes, it is.

Now I'm suspecting that the weird ruggie is a Coenobita rubescens. I'm thinking about the word "rubescens" that means "reddish" or "becoming red(dish)". And there's still no prove that C.rubescens is only restricted to the western coast of Africa. Or in another word, there's still a chance that such unpopular species also exists in the Indo-Pacific areas, although they are minorities. And I just remember the splitting Pangaea theory : South America, Africa, Indian Subcontinent, and Australia are previously one continent called "Pangaea".

Julia Coenobita · Post by **Julia Coenobita** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 3:07 pm

Or maybe they have swam over as zoea or glacothoe, the hermit crab larvae stages. I've heard they can travel far from their birthplace, but I don't know how far.