Two New Species Of Vampire Crabs Discovered

[n2doc]

Meet two tiny new species of “vampire crabs” from Java, Indonesia! One has gorgeous purple claws, the other has stunning orange nippers, and they both have intense yellow eyes that give them their vampiric appearance. While new to science, both species have been in the aquarium trade for many years already.

In the last decade or so, colorful land-dwelling crabs from the genus Geosesarma have been sold in Asia and Europe and exported around the world. The two most popular of these vampire crabs are the violet ones and the bright orange ones, but where they originated has been a bit of a mystery: Dealers have claimed that they come from Sulawesi, Java, Krakatau, or Riau Islands in Indonesia.

Now, a trio of researchers led by Peter Ng of National University of Singapore have established that the two species are, in fact, native to central Java. The new crabs were found along hillstreams about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from each other, and the team have named the purple one Geosesarma dennerle and the orange one Geosesarma hagen. They’re described in the current volume of Raffles Bulletin of Zoology [pdf].

more

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/two-new-vampire-crabs-traced-back-java-indonesia

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Heh ... the name "Raffles" caught my eye ...

namesake of Rafflesia, aka the "corpse flower":

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, FRS (6 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman, Lieutenant-Governor of British Java (1811 – 1815), Governor-General of Bencoolen (1817 – 1822), best known for his founding of the city of Singapore in 1819 (now the city-state of the Republic of Singapore) and the London Zoo. He is often described as the "Father of Singapore"[2] and the "Father of the London Zoo". He was also heavily involved in the conquest of the Indonesian island of Java from Dutch and French military forces during the Napoleonic Wars and contributed to the expansion of the British Empire. He was also an amateur writer and wrote a book titled The History of Java (1817).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamford_Raffles

So ... why the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology ? It began life as the Bulletin of the Raffles Museum of Singapore, named after you-know-who. Why Rafflesia ? Raffles himself led the expedition which discovered it (for the second time). All of which reminds me of something Tom Lehrer said:

It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years.

ETA: I hope those crabs show up in the "Cool" column on DU's Home page !