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Heloecius
Sign in to saveHeloecius cordiformis is a species of semiterrestrial crab found in mangrove swamps and mudflats along the east coast of Australia. Adults are around wide, with males being larger and having larger and more conspicuously coloured claws. The males wave their claws to communicate with other crabs, giving them their common name of semaphore crab. They can breathe both in air and under water, and feed at low tide on detritus in the sediment. H. cordiformis is the only species in the genus Heloecius and the family Heloeciidae.
Species
Semaphore Crab
GENUS
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumArthropoda
- ClassMalacostraca
- OrderDecapoda
- FamilyHeloeciidae
via GBIF
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 7
- Family
- Heloeciidae
- Collections
- USNM, QM, BPBM
- Recorded in
- Australia, Indonesia, New South Wales, Southeastern Australia
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Description
- Distribution
- Ecology and behaviour
- Systematics
- See also
- References
Heloecius cordiformis is a species of semiterrestrial crab found in mangrove swamps and mudflats along the east coast of Australia. Adults are around wide, with males being larger and having larger and more conspicuously coloured claws. The males wave their claws to communicate with other crabs, giving them their common name of semaphore crab. They can breathe both in air and under water, and feed at low tide on detritus in the sediment. H. cordiformis is the only species in the genus Heloecius and the family Heloeciidae.
==Description== Adults of H. cordiformis are around wide, with a dark purple, mottled carapace. The compound eyes are on long eyestalks.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Heloecius” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.