Grimothea planipes explained

Grimothea planipes, also known as the pelagic red crab, red crab, or tuna crab, is a species of squat lobster from the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Description

Grimothea planipes is a bright red animal, up to long.[1] It resembles a true lobster, but has a shorter abdomen.[2]

Distribution

Grimothea planipes lives on the continental shelf west of Mexico.[3] It is usually found only south-west of San Diego,[1] but in warmer years, its range may extend northwards into California.[3] This is usually indicative of an El Niño event.[4] Adults migrate vertically to near the ocean surface and large numbers occasionally wash up on beaches during warm water events.[3] The southern limit of the species' range is in Chile.[5]

Life cycle

The life cycle of Grimothea planipes appeared for a long time to form a paradox: while an adult population was maintained along the south-western coast of the United States, the planktonic larvae they released were immediately swept by the California Current thousands of miles out to sea. A solution was proposed whereby the larvae use an opposing undercurrent at a lower depth to return to the continental shelf, and this hypothesis was confirmed by sampling different depths of water with a plankton recorder.[6]

Ecology

Grimothea planipes usually feeds on protists and zooplankton, but will feed by filtering blooms of diatoms.[7]

As the most abundant species of micronekton in the California Current, Grimothea planipes fills an important ecological niche converting primary production into energy that larger organisms can use.[8] G. planipes is accordingly an important food item for many species of birds, marine mammals and fish. It is favoured by tuna, leading to one of the species' common names – "tuna crab".[1] Other fish known to feed on G. planipes include billfishes, yellowtail amberjack, sharks[9] and Epinephelus analogus.[10] The diets of gray whales,[11] Bryde's whales,[12] blue whales[12] and sea otters[13] all include G. planipes. The Mexican endemic bat Myotis vivesi also feeds on G. planipes at some times of the year.[14] Off Baja California, the stomachs of some loggerhead sea turtles have been observed to contain only G. planipes.[15] Since G. planipes may be washed ashore in large numbers, it can be a valuable addition to the diets of seabirds such as the herring gull (Larus argentuatus), whose food supply is usually diminished in El Niño years.[16]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Sam Hinton . 1987 . Seashore Life of Southern California: an Introduction to the Animal Life of California Beaches South of Santa Barbara . 2nd . Issue 26 of California Natural History Guides . . 978-0-520-05924-5 . Phylum Arthropoda ("joint-limbed animals") . 131–161 . https://books.google.com/books?id=Malr3FFfMUAC&pg=PA151.
  2. Book: Wheeler J. North . 1976 . Underwater California . Volume 39 of California Natural History Guides . . 978-0-520-03039-8 . Marine animals: arthropod crustacea, echinoderms, and tunicates . 207–231 . https://books.google.com/books?id=crarCqtdbUIC&pg=PA208.
  3. Book: Robert Hugh Morris . Donald Putnam Abbott . Eugene Clinton Haderlie . 1980 . Intertidal Invertebrates of California . . 978-0-8047-1045-9 . Macrura and Anomura: the ghost shrimps, hermit crabs, and allies . Janet Haig . Donald P. Abbott . amp . 577–593 . https://books.google.com/books?id=NAybxQZvWI0C&pg=PA578.
  4. Book: Ronald H. McPeak . Dale A. Glantz . Carole R. Shaw . 1988 . The Amber Forest: Beauty and Biology of California's Submarine Forests . Aqua Quest Publications . 978-0-922769-00-1 . The ever-changing forest . 32–41 . https://books.google.com/books?id=LlWovo8kJu4C&pg=PA40.
  5. Lobster à la carte . . 15 . 4 . 2007 . Kareen Schnabel . Amelia Connell . amp .
  6. Book: Ernest Naylor . 2010 . Chronobiology of Marine Organisms . . 978-0-521-76053-9 . Plankton vertical migration rhythms . 134–149 . https://books.google.com/books?id=7zLqjQlzM60C&pg=PA168.
  7. Alan R. Longhurst, Carl J. Lorenzen & William H. Thomas . 1967 . The role of pelagic crabs in the grazing of phytoplankton off Baja California . . 48 . 2 . 190–200 . 10.2307/1933100 . 1933100.
  8. Carlos J. Robinson . Vicente Anislado . Antonio Lopez . 2004 . The pelagic red crab (Pleuroncodes planipes) related to active upwelling sites in the California Current off the west coast of Baja California . Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography . 51 . 6–9 . 753–766 . 10.1016/j.dsr2.2004.05.018.
  9. Book: Larry Glenn Allen . Daniel J. Pondella . Michael H. Horn . 2006 . Ecology of Marine Fishes: California and Adjacent Waters . . 978-0-520-24653-9 . Feeding mechanisms and trophic interactions . Michael H. Horn . Lara A. Ferry-Graham . amp . 387–410 . https://books.google.com/books?id=Qdzg0Vfql2sC&pg=PA406.
  10. Web site: Susan M. Luna . Nicolas Bailly . amp . Epinephelus analogus Gill, 1863, spotted grouper . . February 15, 2011 . October 6, 2010.
  11. Book: Robert Busch . 1998 . Gray Whales: Wandering Giants . . 978-1-55143-114-7 . The nature of the beast . 1–66 . https://books.google.com/books?id=owKh7oDYqgYC&pg=PA48.
  12. Book: Mercedes Guerrero, Jorge Urbán y Lorenzo Rojas . 2006 . Las Ballenas del Golfo de California . Instituto Nacional de Ecología . 978-968-817-761-7 . Spanish . Conocimiento biológico de los cetáceos del Golfo de California . 157–406 . https://books.google.com/books?id=kDWy9Px7XakC&pg=PA239.
  13. Book: George A. Feldhamer . Bruce Carlyle Thompson . Joseph A. Chapman . 2003 . Wild Mammals of North America: Biology, Management, and Conservation . 2nd . . 978-0-8018-7416-1 . James L. Bodkin . 735–743 .
  14. Web site: January 6, 2011. Isla Monserrat & Isla del Carmen . Daily Expedition Reports . William Lopez-Forment . February 15, 2011 . Lindblad Expeditions & National Geographic . https://web.archive.org/web/20110710211836/http://www.expeditions.com/DER_Details113.asp?DailyReport=151587 . July 10, 2011 . dead . mdy-all .
  15. Web site: Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758) . Species Fact Sheets . . February 15, 2011.
  16. Brent S. Stewart, Pamela K. Yochem & Ralph W. Schreiber . 1984 . Pelagic red crabs as food for gulls: a possible benefit of El Niño . . 86 . 341–342 . 10.2307/1367007 . 3. 1367007 .

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