A gazillion deep-water crabs mysteriously congregate off Panama

April 12, 2016 • 3:30 pm

The Guardian reports a mysterious biological observation made off Panama: gazillions of crabs of the species Pleuroncodes planipes (also called “the tuna crab”) scuttling across the floor of silent seas* at a depth of 360-380 meters. The report, taken from a paper by Jesús Peneda et al. in PeerJ (free link) was based on observations from a submersible, and showed extraordinary densities of the beasts: nearly 80 crabs per square meter! If you click on the screenshot below, you’ll go to the Guardian article, which has a video:

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Why are they doing this? Lord knows, for the investigators don’t:

“At first, we thought they were biogenic rocks or structures. Once we saw them moving, swarming like insects, we couldn’t believe it.

“Nothing like this has ever been seen, where we have this very dense swarm at the bottom,” Pineda said. “We have no idea why they might be doing this.”

 

33 thoughts on “A gazillion deep-water crabs mysteriously congregate off Panama”

  4. They’ve been attracted by the sonic resonance of whatever is being used to hack into Panamanian banks, lawyers etc to enable more damaging links about the financial affairs of the super-rich.

    I don’t even know if that makes sense.

  5. I should have been a pair of claws,
    Scuttling across the floors of silent seas…

    And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully…

    love song of JA Prufrock. Best poem ever.

      1. And for an extra, extra bonus, in which unlikely epic film was it quoted, by whom and in reference to whom? Characters or actors will gain you the point.

          2. Yes. Though I’m not sure if you’ll receive your bonus. Generally you don’t win a competition if you get the answer after you’ve been told it. LOL. But spot on anyway.

  8. Don’t red crabs on Christmas Island do this though on land. And I seem to recall from my Jacques Cousteau-loving childhood that spiny lobsters do something like this?

    1. Yes, that’s what I remember too … red crabs amassing on land during breeding season. I read that when the eggs are touched by sea water, they hatch.

  9. I would go with the thought that it’s a protection behavior to avoid the tuna.

  11. Grab the drawn butter and bibs!

    (Do you dare to give a peach in lieu of bonus points?)

  13. I seem to recall a fantasy novel by James P. Blaylock — Land of Dreams, perhaps? — that attributed mystical significance to a mass migration of crabs.

  14. I expected that the panama papers scandal would expose something fishy, but as it turns out it’s rather a load of crab.

  17. I think this has to do with something amiss in their usual environment around Baja, California. Previous mass stranding in San Diego was attributed to overly warm ocean water. The crabs might be seeking cooler waters (perhaps less polluted waters?) that have more oxygen.

    The only other thing I can think of is maybe they can detect tiny tremors along the California coast and are fleeing for safer harbours.

    Somebody should also be checking into what’s going on around Baja, Calif.

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