A flattened crab of about 3 cm (1.2 in), its shell patterned in a fine reticulated mesh of darker lines over a cream or pink ground - a network fine enough to look printed. The low profile lets it slip into cracks too narrow for a rounder animal.
This genus includes the crab responsible for the best-documented crab poisonings anywhere: a related species in the Indo-Pacific carries paralytic shellfish toxin and tetrodotoxin together, in quantities lethal to a person, and cooking does nothing. Whether this particular species is as dangerous is not established, and that uncertainty is exactly the reason to treat the whole family as inedible. Underwater it is harmless, nocturnal and secretive, and the pattern makes it one of the more attractive crabs to photograph among rubble.
- shell patterned in a fine reticulated network
- cream to pink ground with darker mesh lines
- flattened profile for slipping into narrow cracks
- width up to 3 cm
