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Geosesarma

Geosesarma is genus of small freshwater or terrestrial crabs, typically less than across the carapace. They live and reproduce on land with the larval stages inside the egg. They are found in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Hawaii.

In the pet trade, they are called vampire crabs. This has nothing to do with their feeding habits, but rather with the bright, contrastingly yellow eyes of some Geosesarma species.. However not all vampire crab species have bright yellow eyes, there are quite a few species that have white or black eyes.

Species

Geosesarma contains these species:

As of March 2015, professor Peter Ng of National University of Singapore has named 20 Geosesarma species, and he "has another half a dozen or so newly collected Geosesarma species from Southeast Asia in his lab, and these species still need to be named and described."

Threats

Geosesarma dennerle and Geosesarma hagen, both originally from Java, are threatened by illegal overcollection for the aquarium trade.

References