A hermit crab of a centimeter and a half, banded, long-eyed, and living in shells that most people would not notice as shells.
It is named for Janet Haig, who spent a career on the taxonomy of these animals - the anomurans, the group that contains hermit crabs, squat lobsters and porcelain crabs. Much of what can be identified in this section of the catalogue rests on work like hers: somebody sat with a microscope and a series of specimens and established what the differences actually were.
Biologically it is a small nocturnal detritus feeder, working rubble at night and hiding by day, dependent like all hermits on a supply of empty shells it cannot produce.
It lives deeper in the structure than the surface-dwelling species, which is why it is usually found by looking into a hole rather than at the reef.
- very small hermit crab with banded legs and long slender eyestalks
- in minute gastropod shells among rubble
- pale claws with darker tips
- length up to 1.5 cm
