Boxer crab: uses poisonous animals instead of gloves (5 photos + 1 video)

If nature has not rewarded you with the bounty of evolutionary advantages, there are two options left: invent adaptations for survival on your own or go extinct, leaving the evolutionary arena known as “Interspecific competition.” Our hero took the first path.





So, meet the boxer crab. This is not a separate species, but a whole genus of Lybia crabs, which are united by one very unusual feature. Being small in size (two to three centimeters wide), these kids are quite militant and are not going to give themselves offense.

They have weak, underdeveloped claws, and therefore they do not use them for hunting or collecting food. Instead, they came up with the idea of taking an anemone in both claws, which they use as a weapon.



Usually the sea anemones of the species Triactis producta, the only one of its kind, are used. The crab finds young anemones and sits on their claws. When someone threatens him, he stretches his claws forward trying to hit the enemy with sea anemones.

This makes him look like a boxer who lost his gloves before a fight and entered the ring, clutching pom-poms taken from one of the cheerleaders in his fist. The thing is that sea anemones have stinging cells called cnidocytes, which seriously sting those around them, and even kill small organisms.





It is noteworthy that if a crab is deprived of one of the sea anemones, it will immediately pinch off a piece for divorce and begin to grow its weapon on the second, empty claw, since sea anemones are capable of reproduction by dividing them.

And if a crab is deprived of both sea anemones and placed in an aquarium where there are no sea anemones, it will live peacefully, but will not use its claws to collect food, as other crabs do. Instead, it will continue to use its walking legs for feeding. And the claws will hang around idle.



The benefit of this union for the crab is obvious: it receives a formidable means of protection, and also collects part of the food obtained by the sea anemone. But why would the sea anemone work for this cocky “cheerleader”?

Everything is very simple. Well, first of all, no one asks her when they put her on her claw. Secondly, the sea anemone becomes more mobile, which means more opportunities for hunting. And it won’t get carried away by sand on the seabed.