The Different Crabs I spotted in Choroni

Hi! I went to the beach to celebrate the new year, I took a lot of photos and haven't shared most of them, and looking through the album I found some photos of the red crabs around the beach. It made me remember why I was so amazed by them. You see, seeing a crab on the beach is expected, but I usually just see the ones on the sand, this time I went around and found three different crabs, with different colors based on where they lived, and they were just meters apart!

This was in Choroní, a Beach in Aragua, Venezuela. It has 3 differentiated areas: The beach, the mountains, and the Malecón.

The crabs I found of the beach were sand color, very hard to see if you were just passing by, and even sometimes when you have already spotted them, they would disappear. I did a little research and found they are Ocypode quadrata, also known as Phantom Crab or Sand Crab (Source). After noon you can see people around trying to catch these sand crabs.

Sad note: After having this post all written, I discovered I lost all the photos of the sand colored ones, among other photos of that day, I don't know what happened, and I had a lot of them because my dad and sister were around grabbing some of them and I took a bunch of photos, even one of the sand crabs didn't want to leave my dad, he had him hanging of his clothes until we were getting too far away from where we found them. So here is a photo of the holes they dig and the beach where we found them... also a reference photo I found online just so you have an idea of how they look like. If I ever recover the lost photos, I'll edit.

^{Playa Grande}

Here is a reference photo so you at least can see what color they are:

^Source

The ones on the mountain were red with a darker color on top, much like parts of the soil, and they were mostly hidden under plants or crevices on the rocks. We saw them very early or during sunset. They can be seen in other areas, not just the mountain, but that is their main habitat, especially while they are small. I tried to find its name but the only one that showed up is "cangrejo rojo" or well, red crab.

^{My dad holding one}

^{This photo was taken by me but 2 years ago, on the other side of the mountain}

Then the ones on the Malecon (couldn't find the word for this in English, you tell me, it's like a jetty, breakwater... I don't know, but it's made of rocks along the beach) were the wall made of rocks always has moss and seaweeds, the crabs were almost green, with patches, almost like the military camouflage, maybe rock colored, they are very hard to spot on the wet rocks.

^{This photo was taken on 2023,}

All of them adapted to the little area where they live, and in the map you will see how fascinating it is that it is all very close!

Note: the red crab is all over the mountain in the middle of the green and sand crabs, I just saw it for the first time on the viewpoint at that location, but then I saw it close to the sand one as well, on the other side of the mountain.

Choroní is an amazing place to visit, the beach is great, so is the food and the chocolate, and seeing the marine life is awesome. I imagine there are even more varieties of crabs than these three, I know for sure some bigger ones are on the sea because the restaurant had them 😅 I hope you like this post!

All photos taken by me with my Redmi Note 12 Pro, unless stated otherwise

Designed by @jes.seth

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