Jan 23, 2012: Crab Balls

[xoxoxoBruce]

Put away the seafood sauce, you don't want to eat these crab balls.

Small hermit and soldier crabs in Malaysia and Australia build their home digging a deep hole in the sand on a beach. They got a good idea of how to move sand up during his construction. Down in the hole this crab is making sand balls and later push them up to the surface, 2-3 balls at a time. Pushing sand ball more far from the hole they form a kind of sand ball flower or sand ball galaxy.

Then the tide comes in and they start all over again.
Makes me wonder if some will evolve enough to dig above the high water mark, but maybe the sand's not wet enough to dig.

The Ark in Space via Kuriositas