Don't be crabby

bip bop boo Verified independent store

→

Flame-backed fiddler crab Also known as the Darwin red-legs, this feisty little crab is a useful recycler. Neither carnivore nor herbivore, the fiddler crab is a detritivore. This means exactly what it sounds like – it lives on detritus. Detritus is made up of dead organic matter – plants, animals and other creatures’ poo. While this sounds disgusting, the work of detritivores keeps the world a lot cleaner by processing a whole lot of yuck that would otherwise have nowhere to go. At home in the edges of the mangroves, fiddler crabs are a small but vital part of the mangroves ability to act as the ‘kidneys’ of the land. Mangroves filter whatever passes through them, trapping nutrients, sediment and pollutants that are best kept out of marine environments. Show more