Purple Porcelain - Observation of the Week, 9/5/23

Our Observation of the Day is this Petrolisthes violaceus porcelain crab, seen in Chile by @matias_saa!

“I believe that the people of my country…are not very familiar with the animals or other kinds of life that coexist in the same areas where they live,” says Matias Sáa, a recent veterinary medicine graduate.

Conservation depends on the motivation of the people who live by nature, and what is not known is not protected - for this reason I believe that photography is a very good tool to bring this unknown world closer to people, to show how fascinating nature is.

Matias lives in the city of Viña del Mar, and likes to visit the coast at low tide. The crustacean you see above was found when Matias and a friend were out looking for creatures that Matias’s friend could put in nature guide they’re working on. 

This large and impressively colored specimen caught our attention and was the perfect candidate to include in this work. These animals are quite common in the area and I have always been struck by how little known they are to the inhabitants of my country, whose coast and sea are famous for having only “gray and not very colorful fish.” For this very reason I like to share my photos and make these colorful animals known, thus showing the true natural wealth of the Chilean coasts.

While they look like crabs, “porcelain crabs” (Porcellanidae) are more closely related to squat lobsters, forming the super family Galatheoidea. Porcelain crabs are often quite flat, which allows them to hide in crevices and under rocks. Their large claws, which are used for territorial disputes, detach easily as a form of defense, and is the basis of their common English name. To feed, they use special limbs by their mouths to trap plankton. Some are dull-colored, but many others are vibrant. 

“I had a special interest in nature from an early age thanks to the fact that my family really likes to spend time outdoors in natural spaces,” says Matias (above). 

My dad took me on excursions to hike through different hills in my country where little by little I learned about all kinds of creatures and other forms of life…In the future I plan to dedicate myself to the area of ​​exotic animal and wildlife medicine to contribute to nature conservation.

I use iNaturalist mainly as a means to identify species, but also to keep informed about the “rare observations” that appear near me, so I can try to find and photograph them. It’s also very useful in gathering information for my research.

(Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity. Google Translate was used to translate text from the original Spanish.)

- here’s some footage of a porcelain crab feeding.

Posted on September 5, 2023 10:54 PM by tiwane