As we started our walk, I took my usual photographs, that includes every animal that I see. Tree Climbing Crabs were one of them. Although they were so common, I rarely got a clear picture of any. This is because they are always at the very bottom, forcing me to zoom in as much as possible. When I zoom in, the quality decreases. This time, I decided to just take shots of them with half-zoom. Well, this method did work out better...
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How's that? Not bad for a digital camera. I took shots of the biggest crabs as they would be more easily visible. Here are some of the crabs that I shot.
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During low tides, you can find these crabs on the mangrove floor feeding on leaves. During high tides, you can usually find them at a height high enough to clear the water level and they will remain motionless on tree-trunks, leaves or boardwalk legs.
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This is probably a predator-avoidance behaviour, especially with the many predatory species of fish and crabs that hunt with the incoming tide. Out of the water, they remain motionless to avoid other predators like kingfishers, monitor lizards and otters. At night time or dusk, they have been seen climbing up trees to heights of more than six meters to graze on algae as well as eating leaves.
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These Crabs are also called Vinegar Crabs as the Teochew are known to pickle this crab in black sauce with vinegar, and take it with porridge.
Although they look harmless, they are sometimes considered pests of mangrove plantations for their habit of attacking propagules (seeds of the Lenggadai, a threaten species of mangrove).
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I seemed to have had taken far enough photographs and hence I kept a look-out for other creatures. I spotted a few Horshoe Crabs and so I focused on them instead.
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