I’ve only seen one or two seven-eleven crabs (Carpilius maculatus) before, and not for several years. My wife had never seen one. One reason for this is that the crabs are active at night. But we saw this one a few days ago, scuttling over the rocks and sand. It was quite early in the morning, so the crab was probably headed for its home.
These crabs are quite large and have the distinctive markings that give it its name. There are the two spots alongside each eye and three across the center of the shell. Four more spots are less obvious on the back edge of the shell.
In Hawaii, these crabs are called ‘alakuma. Legend has it that a god caught an ‘alakuma, but the crab struck back and drew blood. This happened a second time, before the god finally snagged the crab. But the crab’s descendants continue to bear the markings of the god’s bloody fingerprints.
Very striking looking crab – bloody fingerprints would not be an association I would have thought of!
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Many of these old legends have a lot of violence in them. I guess that’s how life was back then.
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Fascinating crab Graham 🙂
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I’d bee thinking about them for the past couple of weeks, so it was good to see one.
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So it was a manifestation that worked 🙂
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I guess!
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