A small dark crab living inside shallow coral heads, fringed along the legs with fine hair that gives it its name.
It is one of the residents of a branching colony rather than one of its guards. Where Trapezia and Tetralia defend their coral and are rewarded with mucus, this one is a lodger: it takes shelter and eats detritus, algae and whatever the water brings, without doing the coral any particular service.
A single coral head can hold a dozen species living at once on that spectrum - defenders, lodgers, predators and the fish that eat them - which is the reason a colony is worth looking into rather than at.
It tolerates surge better than most, and it is common in the shallow, wave-washed corals where few other crabs bother to live. Two centimeters (0.8 in), and a xanthid, with the family's usual warning against eating anything of the kind.
- small dark crab with a smooth shell and black-tipped claws
- fringe of fine hair along the legs and the front of the shell
- inside branching coral, especially in shallow surge
- width up to 2 cm
