Researchers at the Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala, have reported the discovery of four new species of crab from the Kerala coast. The sea off Kovalam coast is home to a rare crustacean – a crab which belongs to a genus that has never before been sighted in the Indian Ocean. The Researchers have aptly named it Afropinnotheres Ratnakara, was found inside the brown mussel (Perna perna) at Kovalam. ‘Ratnakara’ means Indian Ocean in Sanskrit.

Though the department was also part of discovering three new species of hermit crabs, this rare species steals the limelight. The three hermit crabs which were discovered are ‘Paguristes Luculentus’, ‘Diogenes Canaliculatus’ and ‘Pagurus Spinossior’.

About Researchers:- 

Biju Kumar, head of the Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries conducted the research in collaboration with Peter Ng Kee Lin, head of Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, Singapore. The department and Kerala University is finalising a Memorandum of Agreement with the Singapore expert for a detailed study on biogeography of crustaceans of Indian coastal waters. The publication of the new species of hermit crabs were done as a collaborative research work of Biju Kumar and  research scholar R Reshmi with Tomoyuki Komai, a hermit crab taxonomy expert at Natural History Museum and Institute, Chiba, Japan.

Ubiquitous animals:-

• Hermit crabs are ubiquitous animals often not considered to be ‘true’ crabs as they lack an external shell on their soft abdomen which leaves them vulnerable to predators.
• To protect themselves, they live in abandoned gastropod (snail) shells and often select larger shells as they grow up. Their last two pairs of legs are small and modified and, along with their uropods (appendages at the end of the abdomen), are used to clamp onto the internal whorls of the shell.
• More than 40 species of hermit crabs were documented from the Kerala coast during the research project.

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