Animal Crossing Fish - Explained #182

Brought to you by a marine biologist and a nod to yesterday’s joke I guess…

CLICK HERE FOR THE AC FISH EXPLAINED MASTERPOST!

I’m not a fan of April 1st. TBH I avoided Tumblr for the most part yesterday, but I couldn’t not-notice one of the running gags yesterday was about crabs. So, today, we’ll cover another little crab boi - the Freshwater Crab!

Here’s another little friend who appeared for one event and then was never seen again. The Freshwater Crab was introduced in June of 2020 and, yeah, that’s it. The nice thing about these event animals, though, at least from my perspective, is that *most* of them are named directly to species common name, so, like, I haven’t had to do some extended sleuthing in quite some time. Heh - that all ended today.

There are about 1300 species under the umbrella term “freshwater crab” in Brachyura - the true crabs. They come from a bunch of different SuperFamilies, so it’s speculated the move into freshwater habitats has happened multiple times over the true crab lineage. We actually covered another one when we spoke about the Vampire Crab who is closely related to today’s crab - they both come from Family Sesarmidae. Just like that cutie, this one is also popular in the pet trade for its small size and bright, varied coloration. I do believe this is Perisesarma bidens, the Red-Clawed Crab!

Picture from Fish Keeping Project.

Although it’s called the Freshwater Crab, and it can live in freshwater, it is most at home in brackish water, which is much more salty than a river or pond, but not as much as the ocean. This is because these crabs’ natural habitat are tropical mangrove swamps, which typically border the ocean. On a wider scale, these crabs are widespread through the Indo-Pacific region, from Zanzibar to Japan. These are semi-terrestrial, meaning they spend much more time on dry land than you’d expect. At low tide, these crabs can be found on the mangrove forest floor just chillin’ and finding some grub to eat, which can be really anything they can get their claws into. Like, if it’s not a predator, it’s food. Which…can be problematic since they have been found to eat trash, too. Oof.

And there you have it! Fascinating stuff, no?