Metopaulias

Metopaulias
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Crustacea
Class:	Malacostraca
Order:	Decapoda
Infraorder:	Brachyura
Family:	Sesarmidae
Genus:	Metopaulias; Rathbun, 1896
Species:	M. depressus
Binomial name
	Metapaulias depressus; Rathbun, 1896

Metopaulias is a monotypic genus of fully terrestrial land crabs which do not need to go back to the sea to spawn. Metopaulias depressus is a reddish-brown crab about 2 centimetres (0.79 in) wide which lives in the pools of water that form in the leaves of bromeliads in Jamaica. The female lays about 90 eggs, then tends to her offspring, removing dead leaves that would deoxygenate the water and adding snail shells to the pool to provide high levels of calcium that they require, catching cockroaches and millipedes to feed them, and killing larvae of the damselfly Diceratobasis macrogaster which would otherwise eat them.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b Peter K. L. Ng; Danièle Guinot & Peter J. F. Davie (2008). "Systema Brachyurorum: Part I. An annotated checklist of extant Brachyuran crabs of the world" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 17: 1–286. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-06.
^ Judson, Olivia (March 18, 2008). "Pineapple Dreams". The New York Times.

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[Ng-1] Peter K. L. Ng; Danièle Guinot & Peter J. F. Davie (2008). "Systema Brachyurorum: Part I. An annotated checklist of extant Brachyuran crabs of the world" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 17: 1–286. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-06.

[nyt-2] Judson, Olivia (March 18, 2008). "Pineapple Dreams". The New York Times.

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