Sand Bubbler Crabs

more interesting stuff at http://stretta.com

One morning, on the beaches of Langkawi, I noticed fractal-like patterns in the sand. At first I thought it was caused by an impression of seaweed, but upon closer inspection, the patterns were convex, not concave - in fact - the patterns were hundreds of tiny little spheres of sand. There was always at least one clear path to a hole in the sand. If I stayed still long enough, eventually these tiny little crabs - about the size of a fingernail - climbed out of the holes and began their work.

The crabs are so small, that it is actually fairly difficult to observe what they're doing with the naked eye. This seemed like a good opportunity to try capturing video with my macro lens. I didn't have a tripod, so I found a piece of driftwood and rested the camera on it, laying down prone behind it.
I'd never personally seen anything like it before. These are Sand Bubbler Crabs and they're sifting through huge amounts of sand in search of detritus. The waste sand builds on their head and they kick off the ball before they can't see over it.

The footage was interesting, but the camera audio was not. Sometimes I'd hear some interesting insect noises and pull out my iPod to record it. I brought these recordings home and re-created the sounds on my modular. The other option I seriously considered was overdubbing "OM NOM NOM NOM OM NOM NOM NOM NOM" at various pitches and editing that in.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Sand
• Bubbler
• Crabs

[baton5]

what camera did you use for the footage?

[stretta]

Canon 5DmkII + EF100mm macro.

Footage cropped from 1080 to 720.

[skrike]

Seriously please remake this with OM NOM NOM NOM. Great video. :)

[synthmonger]

The other option I seriously considered was overdubbing "OM NOM NOM NOM OM NOM NOM NOM NOM" at various pitches and editing that in.

Perhaps an alternative video is due? ;)

[Jinx6670]

sooooo cute. i think that you need to find other crabs!!

[MrEfrisque]

I'm so happy to find your video. I've taken wonderful pics of their food balls on the strand. Now I understand how they do it. Great artists !

[Nesplayer]

why did it attack the other crab :(

[BaoHadir]

@ryan4rmsplat Food. What else? Their bodies quickly sift out the edibles from the sand, while the sand itself is shunted into a mucus sack at the top of their heads. When it's big enough, they knock it off, move it out of the way, and start another.

[krzygrl18]

they do that to eat the tiny organisms in the sand........... Ive been paying wayyyy 2 much attention in marine biology : , - (

[B5hipley]

very cool. I too am curious as to why they do this?

[ryan4rmsplat]

why do they do that??????????????

[demmyboo]

I find this very cute, but at the same time I have this...disturbed feeling. I feel very itchy all over.

I think this is something to do with my trypophobia for some reason.

Still quite cute though, I like crabs.

[1schwererziehbar1]

wall-e

[DeliciousGreenSmurf]

please make the NOM version!!! ahaha

amazing footage!!!