Stella Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 Halicarcinus lacustris: Native freshwater spider crab The only freshwater crab in NZ, also found in Australia and Norfolk Island. Maximum length: 10mm (shell width) Detritivores Lives in slow-flowing, sandy or silty streams and lakes. Preyed on by fish Sensitive to bright light. I got these little guys in late January from the sandy bottom of a stream in Auckland (Oratia Stream is known for having a good population). They came all the way down to Palmerston North in a Pump bottle in my backpack on my motorcycle.....! I started out with six and amazingly there are still six, nearly two months later. They have been living in a 20x20cm glass tank with a couple of large pebbles and some nitella and misc detritus. They have had very little attention. I suspect they ate the latia (native glowing limpet) and discovered recently they quite like bloodworms. Not exactly fish, but they live in water. Very rarely seen. I just took them out to photograph in a petri dish. They were not impressed. The large versions are pretty cool. If anyone is interested enough I will email you a bigger version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.PROPHECY Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 i caught some of these in ortia stream on school trip once Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supasi Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 these are cool. Stella do you know if they can be found anywhere nears us.Manawatu Wanganui area.? Or are they only up auckland way? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted March 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 Hi Supasi, I don't know where else to find them. Seems there are a good few sites up around Auckland/Waikato but that is all I know. I did just now email a girl I know down here who is studying stream invertebrates and might know or know someone else I can ask. The other option if you are keen to get some, is to talk very sweetly to someone local to Oratia to send some down. I would be up for a few more and I imagine they courier fairly well (hell, you heard how I got them down here, they were in that bottle for nearly a week!). I am sure we could cover costs and trouble So what was your excuse for not coming on the native fish hunting trip friday evening and saturday, hmmm? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supasi Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 Yeah I was pretty keen to come, but i have work Saturday. Dammit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayci Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 latia (native glowing limpet). I got some limpets in my tropical tank, they are from the waikato river. Is there more than one speices? I have not seen these ones glow when disturb. Also this ones are only a couple of mm long and transperant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted March 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 Supasi: We will probably do another one next summer Jayci: I think the limpets you have are Ferrissia. They are tiny and transparent like you describe. Apparently they are common in aquariums, arriving on plants, but are usually not noticed. I am not sure where they are from (native or not). The native limpets have black shells, even from 1mm long they are black. They grow to 11mm max. They live in fast flowing water and suck very tightly on to rocks. They are actually not a limpet but a normal spiral-shelled snail that evolved a limpet shell for in faster water. The glowing thing is cool. When disturbed they secrete a glowing mucus. The point is to distract predators with that while the snails grip their rock even tighter and tuck all their tasty bits inside. The mucus is quite thin and the glow fades reasonably quickly. Apparently some streams have such healthy populations of these snails that you leave glowing footprints if you walk across it at night! I am not having much luck keeping them. The first lot were scoffed by the bullies (I couldn't believe they were able to prise them off the rocks!) and the crabs at very least cleaned out the shells of the latest lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loopy Posted March 21, 2008 Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 think the limpets you have are Ferrissia. They are tiny and transparent like you describe. Apparently they are common in aquariums, arriving on plants, but are usually not noticed. I am not sure where they are from (native or not OMG! cool! I had no idea there was even such a thing. But it explains what i have in a couple of my tanks. I always thought they were a early stage of pond snail developing. thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted March 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2008 Just got back from stage one. We went to the farm creek and manawatu river. Caught upland bullies and crayfish at the farm and uplands, common bullies and TORRENTFISH in the manawatu! We had along Andrew, Pete, Peter and Ang, James, and Richard. Dinner then spotlighting in the Turitea stream next! EDIT: ok so I menat to post that in the native fish trip thread.... :oops: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(Medium).thumb.jpg.a01a77a9b0ed5d19a29af66986bf7df8.jpg)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.