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Violet Vinegar Crab
(Episesarma versicolor)
More tree-climbing
crabs
Wasp building nest |
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Date:
28 Jul 2001
Time: 3-5pm
Weather: Drizzly
Tide: High
Route: Mangrove Boardwalk |
Singapore Vinegar Crab
(Episesarma singaporense) |
It
was a wet drizzly day and the tide was high. It appeared that there
might be absolutely nothing to see at the Park. How wrong (again)
I was!
It was the perfect time to see the fascinating and colourful Tree-climbing
crabs (Episesarma sp.) from the Mangrove Boardwalk. Usually, at low
tide, these are few between, and far away, busily feeding on leaves
and other titbits on the mudflats . |
At high tide, however,
they are confined to the trees that they judiciously climb up to avoid the
large predators that come in with the tide. During the day, they don't climb
up very far from the water line. Because in daylight, there are other predators
in the trees to avoid. However, at night, they climb further up, as high
as 6m.
The
crabs are eaten with Teochew porridge. They are pickled in black sauce
with vinegar. Hence, another common name for them is Vinegar Crab.
In Thailand, they are eaten salted or fried whole.
On the landward side, a sharp-eyed member of the party spotted huge
brown snails grazing on the mud. These Belongkeng (Ellobium aurisjudae)
have a beautiful brown shell that blends perfectly with their surroundings.
Sheltering from the rain, was a busy little wasp building its paper
nest on the underside of a leaf. |
Purple climber crabs
(Metopograpsus sp.) |
|
Tree-climbing crabs sheltering
on a tree near the water line
Pink-fingered Vinegar Crab
(Episesarma chengtongense)
Belongkeng snail
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