''Diogenes heteropsammicola'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

hermit crab Hermit crabs are anomuran decapod crustaceans of the superfamily Paguroidea that have adapted to occupy empty scavenged mollusc shells to protect their fragile exoskeletons. There are over 800 species of hermit crab, most of which possess an a ...

discovered during samplings between 2012 and 2016 in the shallow waters of the Japanese

Amami Islands The The name ''Amami-guntō'' was standardized on February 15, 2010. Prior to that, another name, ''Amami shotō'' (奄美諸島), was also used. is an archipelago in the Satsunan Islands, which is part of the Ryukyu Islands, and is southwest o ...

. This ''D. heteropsammicola'' is strongly associated with the walking corals. This hermit crab species is unique due to the discovery that they use living, growing

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

as a shell. The live in the inside of the coral and vary from other types of hermits.

Crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s of this type commonly replace their shell as the organism grows in size, but ''D. heteropsammicola'' are the first of their kind to use solitary corals as a shell form. ''

Heteropsammia ''Heteropsammia'' is a genus of apozooxanthellate corals that belong to the family Dendrophylliidae. Anatomy These corals consist of free-living, single polyps, of a diameter of around 2.5 cm. They form a symbiotic relationship with a sip ...

'' and ''

Heterocyathus ''Heterocyathus'' is a genus of coral of the family Caryophylliidae. Species * '' Heterocyathus aequicostatus'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 (type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name w ...

'' are the two solitary corals that this hermit species has been observed as occupying. These two coral species are also used as a home by symbiotic

sipuncula The Sipuncula or Sipunculida (common names sipunculid worms or peanut worms) is a class containing about 162 species of unsegmented marine annelid worms. The name ''Sipuncula'' is from the genus name ''Sipunculus'', and comes from the Latin ' ...

ns of the genus '' Aspidosiphon'', which normally occupy the corals that the were previously occupied by crabs. The discoverers of this species are Momoko Igawa and Makoto Kato of

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

, Japan.

References

External links

* Diogenidae Crustaceans of Japan Crustaceans described in 2017 {{crab-stub