Walking Dendros are still fairly new to the reefing hobby, only being introduced as recently as 2009. The coral is Heteropsammia cochlea, a substrate-dwelling yet photosynthetic stony coral that gains its “walking” title by way of a Sipunculan (Peanut worm,)活在其中。珊瑚幼虫定居在蜗牛壳上,下面已经有蠕虫。珊瑚骨架随着时间的推移和蠕虫的形式生长并包裹着外壳,但是蠕虫在珊瑚的底面挖出了一个孔,它可以延伸以喂食,但也以合理的速度移动珊瑚息肉,以找到食物一旦它闻到它,所以步行。它们可以保存在水族馆中,偶尔出售。他们提出了很好的谈话要点。
Then underwater photographer iwashiiwashi on Instagram photographed what looks like Heteropsammia cochlea, only with a filter-feeding Hermit crab dwelling inside the Peanut Worm’s hole. The crab is even newer, only being described in 2017, by Momoko Igawa and Makoto Kato in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE and is called Diogenes heteropsammicola.We covered the new crab at the timebut it’s great to see fresh pictures.
作者在本文的摘要中指出:“共生式的转变在强制性互助中很少见,因为两个伴侣都相互依赖并彼此专业。”“在行走珊瑚和sipunculans之间的强制性住宿 - 运输互助中,发现了异常的盐共生转移。在日本南部的浅水区中,发现一种未描述的寄居蟹,生活在杂肌和杂虫属的孤独的巩膜珊瑚中,取代了通常的sipunculan symbiont。”
“We described the hermit crab as a new species Diogenes heteropsammicola (Decapoda, Anomura, Diogenidae), and explored its association with the walking corals. This hermit crab species obligately inhabits the coiled cavity of the corals, and was easily distinguished from other congeneric species by the exceedingly slender chelipeds and ambulatory legs, and the symmetrical telson. Observations of behavior in aquaria showed that the new hermit crab, like the sipunculan,carries the host coral and prevents the coral from being buried. This is an interesting case in which an organism phylogenetically distant from Sipuncula takes over the symbiotic role in association with a walking coral. The hermit crab species is unique in that its lodging is a living solitary coral that grows with the hermit crab in an accommodation–transportation mutualism.”
Hermit crabs inhabit other invertebrates too. Staghorn Antler hermit crabs inhabit the hydrocoral Janaria mirabilis and Paguritta spp. crabs occupy the Christmas tree worm tubes in Porites corals. Whether the peanut worm had died or vacated its Heteropsammia host is unclear. We see our “reef-safe,” hermit crabs kill, eat and inhabit snails in our tanks although Diogenes heteropsammicola looks altogether more spindly and delicate. Either way, we’ll never tire of mutualism in the marine world.