What's new
By:
Filters
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Crabby baby

swords

swords

Some of you may have heard me bragging that my Geosesarma sp. "Red" (Red Vampire Crabs) had babies - here's the best shot I could get of one so far:

babycrab.jpg



I'm not sure how many babies there are, I have a pic of two side by side but it's not as clear as this shot. You can see by the duckweed & Riccia strands just how small the babies are and how well they would blend with wet sphagnum and peat. I've found a good way to see them is to pull the lid off and blow at the soil, you'll see things darting. LOL
 
It's so tiny but cute! Omg!
 
I wish I could have gotten a pic of the one riding around on momma yesterday but I didn't find my camera and get back to the tank in time before she disappeared into one of the burrow tunnels dug all over the tank.
 
Awesome! Great job.
~Joe
 
Congrats.

Hows the color on the adults you have? Any recent pics of them?
 
awesome, swords. thats great news!
looks like your doing well with them :)
now hopefully you can start distributing more of these guys around into collections....did you ever find out if those supposed dead males you were pulling when you first got them, were just molts after all?
 
I don't have any pics of the adults you guys haven't seen, spying them is like seeing bigfoot by the time you get the camera setup... they're gone!

But at any rate here's a male:

redvampire5.jpg


Here's a just molted female. She's on the right and mottled in color, they turn firetruck red and solid black after a day or two.
femalemolt.jpg


The molts are very hard to distinguish from the regular crab especially since you see them so rarely you only think "oh no!" when you see a molt. The molts weigh the same as a full crab (because they are done underwater) and look just like a regular crab and unlike an insect their molts do not have any obvious openings... I don't know how the hell they do it but they apparently teleport out of their old shells because upon inspection the shed shell is no different than the crab other than the eyes are not totally white and in the above case the shed is a bit lighter in color but they are not always. So if I'm lucky, I've actually only lost that first big male on the day of arrival.

Tonight I bought some blood worms and glass worms and I will try putting some in the bottom of small vials and see if the babies crawl in to get at the meat. The adults won't fit but a lot of babies will so perhaps I can be smarter than a newborn crab... Or I'll catch a lot of isopods! :D

I was thinking of getting Krill because it has a very high protein content compared to these worms but the Krill is advertising being "high in Vitamin C" and these crabs are not supposed to eat citrus fruits for some reason so I didn't know if Vitamin C would be as bad as the citric acid or not.... ???
 
Last edited:
Awesome, you get red crabbies that are sometimes blue, and babies!
 
Any idea of average lifespan on these guys? I hope it's longer than the mantids ... :blush:
 
  • #10
Mine are all red once past the baby stage or hardened in their molts. The actual Geosesarma sp. "blue" is an totally different species from a different location, these reds are from Sulawesi. The various species are not able to be kept together.

Here's a photo gallery of a nice German fellow named Oliver who has most all the species, I'd like a few more types they seem pretty trouble free:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.panzerwelten.de/v/Geosesarma/&ei=A9KeTNAMkqidB93usLUN&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.panzerwelten.de/v/Geosesarma/%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3Ddyj%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:eek:fficial%26prmd%3Div


People say the Geosesarma crabs live about 2-3 years and supposedly take a year to reach maturity not sure if that is included in the 2-3 years. I will certainly be finding out! :D

Found another "death or molt this afternoon, a small male, I had just dumped a load of live isopods and giant springtails in the other day so hopefully it was just a growth molt and I have another mature male someplace.
 
Last edited:
  • #11
I've actually caught one of the little guys tonight! About a 1/16" leg span:


babycrab2.jpg


I'm going to buy one of those clear plastic dresser drawer shelves to store the individual containers of babies in. I probably can't ship them over winter even with a heat pack and overnight shipping (maybe I can) so likely I will be caring for the pups all winter.

Now that the main tank is flooded there are more babies that I can see. Not sure how many, and if another female has pups well... :-D
But at least this way I can pull out a drawer, pop all the lids, drop in food and turkey baster in some more water and pop the lids back on in an efficient manner.
 
  • #12
I decided to put the tiny guy back in the huge community tank where I caught it cos the big tank has all the food, moss, algae and substrate he needs to eat to get to grow up healthy compared to a sterile cup with moss. I will catch them later in spring unless things start to look crowded when they start growing out and new litters are born.
 
  • #13
Awww its so cute!!!
 
  • #14
They are cute but so fast you really can't believe it!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top