A World of Crabs from One Tiny Island

National Geographic News 25 Nov 08;

Photograph by Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, National University of Singapore

During the Santo 2006 biodiversity expedition, funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, scientists from all over the world collected some 10,000 different species in and around the remote South Pacific island of Espiritu Santo in the Republic of Vanuatu. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

About 600 of these were crab species. This two-horn box crab is able to crack and peel open snails' shells using a sharp "tooth" on its right claw to cut open shells and long, slender "fingers" on the left claw to yank out its prey. A glimpse of the island's astonishing diversity of crabs appears in the photos that follow.