Description
Adult female New Zealand pea crabs have a soft-shelled exoskeleton.Their carapace is oval in shape, ranging in size from 9.3 to 20.2 millimetres (0.37 to 0.80 in) wide. Sexually mature adult females almost always have eggs that are tucked under their abdomens, giving them a more spherical appearance. Adult females are opaque white in colour. Developing eggs change colour from red to orange to yellow before they hatch, giving the brooding mother a different tint at each stage. Adult male New Zealand pea crabs have a hard, chitinous exoskeleton. Their carapace is smaller and more dorso-ventrally flattened than that of the female, ranging in size from 3.2 to 11.8 mm (0.13 to 0.46 in) wide. Adult males are a creamy white colour with distinctive orange markings.
Read more about this topic: New Zealand Pea Crab
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes.”
—Freda Adler (b. 1934)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Once a child has demonstrated his capacity for independent functioning in any area, his lapses into dependent behavior, even though temporary, make the mother feel that she is being taken advantage of....What only yesterday was a description of the child’s stage in life has become an indictment, a judgment.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)