Tiny ghost crabs on a Mexican beach (pics)

These neat little ghost crabs (Ocypode sp.) were common on the beach outside my hotel in Los Cabos, Mexico. A big one would have a carapace that wasn’t much more than six or seven millimetres across. They were amazingly fast and as you can see from these photos, they were extremely well camouflaged against the sand. They dig burrows in the sand to hide in. But if their burrow wasn’t close enough when they felt threatened they would dash away and then suddenly freeze and seemingly disappear.

I spent a great couple of hours squirming across the sand on my belly trying to get close enough to take some good photos. It was really too much fun!

I posted these photos and a number of others on my blog today.

Cheers,
EC
www.macrocritters.wordpress.com

ghost crab 12 copyright Ernie Cooper 2012_filtered by ernie.cooper, on Flickr
ghost crab 5 copyright Ernie Cooper 2012 closer_filtered by ernie.cooper, on Flickr

Those are great pictures! Getting them to hold still like that for long enough is quite a feat.
I used to love looking for those little guys when I was in Mexico. You could dig out a little patch of sand and watch them all scurry off. Sometimes you would hit patches of hundreds of them. They can keep you entertained for hours.
Thanks for sharing

-Kelly

Awesome pics! Its always more rewarding when you have to put yourself in ridiculous positions to get a good shot, isn't it? lol

BrettG said:

Those are great pictures! Getting them to hold still like that for long enough is quite a feat.
I used to love looking for those little guys when I was in Mexico. You could dig out a little patch of sand and watch them all scurry off. Sometimes you would hit patches of hundreds of them. They can keep you entertained for hours.
Thanks for sharing

-Kelly

Click to expand...

Thanks! Funny thing is that I have been to Mexico many times and never encountered them before. I must have been going to the wrong beaches...

EC
www.macrocritters.wordpress.com

---------- Post added 10-19-2012 at 09:56 AM ----------

Beardo said:

Awesome pics! Its always more rewarding when you have to put yourself in ridiculous positions to get a good shot, isn't it? lol

Click to expand...

Thanks! It absolutely is!

EC
www.macrocritters.wordpress.com