Gecarcinus ruricola
| Gecarcinus ruricola | |
|---|---|
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Crustacea |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Infraorder: | Brachyura |
| Family: | Gecarcinidae |
| Genus: | Gecarcinus |
| Species: | G. ruricola |
| Binomial name | |
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Gecarcinus ruricola (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Synonyms | |
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| External identifiers for Gecarcinus ruricola | |
|---|---|
| Encyclopedia of Life | 343653 |
| ITIS | 99131 |
| WoRMS | 422185 |
| Also found in: | |
Gecarcinus ruricola is a species of terrestrial crab. It is the most terrestrial of the Caribbean land crabs, and is found from western Cuba across the Antilles as far east as Barbados. Common names for G. ruricola include the purple land crab,black land crab,red land crab, and zombie crab.
Four colour morphs exist within the species: black, red, yellow and green. The carapace of G. ruricola grows in width at a rate of about 1 inch (25 mm) per year, with the crabs reaching maturity after 5 years, and living for up to 10 years in total.G. ruricola have a number of adaptations to terrestrial life, mostly regarding water conservation. They are nocturnal, to prevent the hot sun from drying them out. They also have a "nephritic pad", onto which urine is released, in order to be cleaned by microbes before the water is then reabsorbed.
G. ruricola is found across much of the Caribbean, from Cuba and the Bahamas in the west through the Antilles to Barbados in the east. It has been reported from Florida and Nicaragua, but few confirmed examples exist from the mainland; Loggerhead Key in the Dry Tortugas marks the northernmost limit of its island distribution, which extends across the Bahamas and Cuba, through the Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles, to Barbados. Outlying populations exist on Curaçao, in the Swan Islands off Honduras, Half Moon Caye of Belize, and in the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina off the Colombian coast.
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Wikipedia