. Animal Life and the World of Nature; A magazine of Natural History. gly fulfils the function of a supple-mentary gill. ,-?; ISome queer comrades commonly share the recesses of the mangrove thickets with Periopthalmus. These are the so-called Mangrove !Fighting or Calling Crabs. The North-Western Australian species is notable for its brilliant livery of black and scarlet, while tints of orange, pink, or blue may be variously blended in allied forms. The huge relative size of one of the large claws or chelse in the male individual is the distinguishing feature of these peculiar crabs, and bein
. Animal Life and the World of Nature; A magazine of Natural History. gly fulfils the function of a supple-mentary gill. ,-?; ISome queer comrades commonly share the recesses of the mangrove thickets with Periopthalmus. These are the so-called Mangrove !Fighting or Calling Crabs. The North-Western Australian species is notable for its brilliant livery of black and scarlet, while tints of orange, pink, or blue may be variously blended in allied forms. The huge relative size of one of the large claws or chelse in the male individual is the distinguishing feature of these peculiar crabs, and being held aloft in a menacing or beckoning manner as the creature walks, has obtained for it in conjunction with its eminently pugnacious habits its characteristic popular titles. Fish and crabs are found consorting with one another in tropical Australian -watcs under yet more singular conditions. The camping-ground of both the fish and crab is, in one instance, in place of a mangrove swamp, on the expanded disk or among the crowded tentacles of a Giant Sea Phutoiiraph hij W. SuriUc-Ecnt, Commensal £?uests of a Giant Anemone that sleep and shelter among the Anemones tentacles, biit sport and feed among the adjacent coral thickets. Queer Fish 119 The anemone, in its fully extended state, may measure as much as from a footto eighteen inches or more in diameter, and is variously tinted. The colours ofthe fish, however, are still more brilliant and in striking contrast to those of itsadopted host. While the anemone is more commonly grey or brown, or it ma,}be apple-green, the dominant colour of the fish is a bright orange-scarlet or vermilion,variegated with broad bands of the purest white. There are several varieties orspecies of this anemone-consorting fish, which are referred technically to the genusAmphiprion. Each of these species, moreover, is found to consort with an alliedbut distinct variety of sea anemone. In some of the species, as many as thre
Size: 1475px × 1695px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1902
