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I have taken many images
of the predatory Paciocinebrina circumtexta (circled rock snail) positioned to feed on a limpet
as soon as the high tide returns. On occasion, I have seen them on other potential prey, but more normally they are on limpets.
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The anomuran crabs include hermit crabs and sand crabs
but there are others like this crab that could be mistaken for a brachyuran crab (e.g., the lined-shore crab), at least until one learns that anomuran crabs only have three
pairs of walking legs, not four as in brachyuran crabs. The most most posterior pair of legs in a porcelain crabs is reduced and is used to groom the body and keep the gills
clean. This anomuran crab, Petrolisthes cinctipes (flat porcelain crab), is common in central California living under rocks.
Porcelain crabs are suspension feeders on plankton using their feather-like third pair of maxillipeds, even
if their large claws might give a false impression that they are used to crush prey, as is the habit of brachyurans or even hermit crabs.
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A perenial favorite of Californian marine biologists is the
anomuran crab known as the furry crab,
Hapalogaster cavicauda (Lithodoidea: Hapalogastridae), which is more broadly known as one of many species of lithotid crabs. This species is known to be quite
omniverous.
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Lithotid crabs are only distantly related to porcelain crabs
(Galatheoidea: Porcellanidae),
or hermit crabs (Paguroidea: Paguridae), or sand crabs (Hippoidea). At the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach,
we have sometimes seen a different member of the same family, Hapalogastridae,
which is at least similar to our spiny lithode crab (Acantholithodes hispidus) that is known from California, but other lithotid crabs in general
are spiny; only the furry crab is velvet-like.
(Too spiny to be A. hispidus?).
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Triopha catalinae (clown dorid)
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Two Calliostoma ligatum (blue-ringed top snails),
one has two (difficult to distinguish in this image) suspension-feeding slipper limpets,
Crepidula sp. (Caenogastropoda: Calyptraeidae). The larger of two is attached to the top snail's shell
and the smaller male is attached to her shell,
because slipper limpets are sequential hermaphrodites (changing from male to female).
In contrast, like most vetigastropods, the top snails (Vetigastropoda: Calliostomatidae) are gonochoric
(i.e., they have separate sexes that stay separate).
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Under Construction!