Crab
Arthropoda – Malacostraca
If you aren’t lucky enough to see a crab alive, you may find part of their hard shell or exoskeleton (external skeleton) on the beach. The exoskeleton of crustaceans serves as a suit of armour and helps protect them from predators. The animal must periodically shed their exoskeleton to grow –
a process known as moulting.
Did you know?
Some crabs can spend long periods of time out of the water. They keep their gills moist in special gill chambers and extract oxygen from the air.
In This Section
- Chordates – Animals with backbones
- Invertebrates – Animals without backbones
- Abalone
- Acorn barnacle
- Baler shell
- Blue button sea jelly
- Bluebottle
- Bryozoan
- Bubbler crabs and sand balls
- Chiton
- Cone shell
- Coral
- Cowry shell
- Crab
- Cuttlebone
- Goose barnacle
- Hermit crabs
- Horned ghost crab (Manburr)
- Limpet
- Mud crab
- Mussel
- Periwinkle
- Pipi
- Ram’s horn shell
- Razor clam
- Sand dollars
- Scallop
- Sea hare
- Sea hares
- Sea jelly
- Sea star
- Sea urchin
- Silver-lip pearl oyster
- Sponge
- Tube worm
- Turban snail
- Violet snail
- Marine Pests
- Seagrasses and Algae
- Unusual Finds