🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨

These small purse crabs, Persephone punctata, are usually found in slightly deeper water. They are called purse crabs, either because the shape of their shell is purse-like, or because the females have a pouch in their abdomen which protects her eggs as she buries herself backward in the sand.

The mottled purse crab is one of just a few species of crab that reproduce through internal fertilization. While most crab species fertilize eggs externally by releasing eggs and sperm simultaneously, the female mottled purse crabs carry developing embryos until the larvae hatch.