4 new purple crab species found in Palawan 04/22/2012

 4 new purple crab species found in Palawan


04/22/2012
Four new species of freshwater crab, bright purple in colour, have been discovered in the biologically diverse Philippines, by a team led by Hendrik Freitag, of Germany’s Senckenberg Museum of Zoology.

The tiny crustaceans were found in streams in remote areas of the Palawan island group.

“They are semi-aquatic and hide in burrows at the stream bank, which are usually found under boulders and roots,” Freitag said in a paper published in the latest edition of the National University of Singapore’s Raffles Bulletin of Zoology.

“Their eggs hatch directly into juvenile crabs and the creatures emerge at night to forage under water,” Freitag added..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20120422nat8.html