Tuesday Crustie: All hail the king!

When something makes normally conservative scientists put “remarkable” in the title of a paper, and name a species “king,” you stop and you open the paper.

This lovely hermit crab is Patagurus rex. This was a new genus, named after a legend in the world of crustaceans, Pat McLaughlin.

The species name is not given because it is particularly regal (sadly), but for “the extraordinary albeit superficial resemblance of this new species to some king crabs.”

This picture shows this hermit carrying not the curved snail shell you usually associate with hermit crabs, but a clam shell.

My only regret is that I didn’t stumble upon this lovely little hermit crab description when it was published a couple of years ago.

Reference

Aanker A, Paulay G. 2013. A remarkable new crab-like hermit crab (Decapoda: Paguridae) from French Polynesia, with comments on carcinization in the Anomura. Zootaxa 3722(2): 283-300. http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3722.2.9