Diogenes heteropsammicola

Diogenes heteropsammicola is a species of hermit crab discovered during samplings between 2012 and 2016 in the shallow waters of the Japanese Amami Islands. This D. heteropsammicola is strongly associated with the walking corals.[1] This hermit crab species is unique due to the discovery that they use living, growing coral as a shell. Crustaceans of this type commonly replace their shell as the organism grows in size, but D. heteropsammicola are the first of their kind to use solitary corals as a shell form. Heteropsammia and Heterocyathus are the two solitary corals that this hermit species has been observed as occupying. These two coral species are also used as a home by symbiotic sipunculans of the genus Aspidosiphon, which normally occupy the corals that the crabs were found inhabiting.[1]

Diogenes heteropsammicola
A, an individual in an aquarium, carrying the coral. B, an individual removed from its host coral. Scale bar: 1 mm.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Family: Diogenidae
Genus: Diogenes
Species:
D. heteropsammicola
Binomial name
Diogenes heteropsammicola
Igawa & Kato 2017[1]

The discoverers of this species are Momoko Igawa and Makoto Kato of Kyoto University, Japan.[1]

References
  1. Igawa M, Kato M (September 2017). "A new species of hermit crab, Diogenes heteropsammicola (Crustacea, Decapoda, Anomura, Diogenidae), replaces a mutualistic sipunculan in a walking coral symbiosis". PLOS ONE. 12 (9): e0184311. Bibcode:2017PLoSO..1284311I. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184311. PMC 5606932. PMID 28931020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.