The underwater world in Sardinia: crustaceans

Underwater one may meet several different species: not only fishes, but also crustaceans (such as individuals from the crabs and lobsters), cephalopods (an example are the octopuses from my previous blog entry) and or the tiny and colourful nudibranches, Today I will show you some impressively beautiful crustaceans. In my selection you may find the hermit crab, the slipper lobster, the crayfish..

The slipper lobster (second picture) is not a real lobster, despite its name. It is however eatable. some species in Australia are called "bug". This kind has tons of different names: shovel-nosed lobster or spanish lobster, mudbug or sandbug, sometimes even flathead or bulldozer lobster:-)) The one we met had edges of its body coloured in purple...

Above is Nico holding the empty houses of two sea urchins... A Specialty in some restaurants here is "spagetthi ai ricci di mare" (pasta with sea urchin). Of course not only the people but also other sea inhabitants love them.

Some funny info about the hermit crab (first and last picture) : As the hermit crab grows in size, it has to find a larger shell and abandon the previous one. This habit of living in a second hand shell gives rise to the popular name "hermit crab", by analogy to a hermit who lives alone.