---
title: Orchid Spider Crab (Hoplophrys oatesii)
scientific_name: Hoplophrys oatesii
common_name: Orchid Spider Crab
taxon: Crabs
published: 2026-08-08T21:11:47.296Z
updated: 2026-08-09T05:32:13.401Z
tags: Orchid Spider Crab, Hoplophrys oatesii, Crabs, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/crabs/orchid-spider-crab
---

# Orchid Spider Crab (*Hoplophrys oatesii*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Crabs (*Brachyura*)
- **Size:** up to 2 cm
- **Depth:** 5-40 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** On soft corals of the genus Dendronephthya
- **Reproduction:** Brooder, Gonochoric

## How to recognise it

- tiny crab sitting among the branches of a soft coral
- body colour matches the host exactly - pink, orange or white
- spines on the back mimic the coral's own sclerites
- width under 2 cm

A crab under 2 cm (0.8 in) that lives its whole life on one soft coral and looks like part of it. The body carries pointed tubercles arranged to imitate the sclerites studding the host's branches, and the colour - pink, orange, white or red - matches whichever colony it settled on, so a photograph of the coral alone often turns out to contain a crab.

The host is a Dendronephthya, one of the tree-like soft corals that inflate with water after dark. The crab feeds on the mucus and captured plankton the coral produces, and adds fragments of the host to its own shell to complete the disguise. Finding one is a matter of scanning inflated soft corals on a night dive and looking for a pattern that is slightly too regular. Females carry a clutch of eggs beneath the abdomen until they hatch. Nothing about the animal is dangerous; the difficulty is entirely in seeing it at all.

## Also known as

- **English:** Soft Coral Crab, Candy Crab
- **French:** Crabe des alcyonnaires
- **Japanese:** イソコンペイトウガニ
- **Chinese:** 奧氏櫻蛛蟹
- **Russian:** Краб-орхидея

## Scientific synonyms

- *Hoplophrys ogilbyi* McCulloch, 1908
- *Parazewa palauensis* Miyake, 1939

## Range

New Caledonian Exclusive Economic Zone, Red Sea, South Pacific Ocean

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/crabs/orchid-spider-crab)*
*Updated: August 9, 2026*