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This Crab Clones Its Allies by Ripping Them in Half
| These tiny, inch-long crabs carry sea anemones, holding them in place with special hooks on the inner edges of their claws. With their crowns of wavy tentacles, the anemones look like pom-poms, and the crabs like cheerleaders. But those tentacles also pack powerful stings, and a quick jab from them is often enough to ward off an attacking fish. Hence the name: boxer crabs.
| Most crabs gather food with their powerful claws, but boxer crabs have adapted so thoroughly to holding anemones that their claws are now feeble, delicate tweezers rather than powerful, crushing pincers. Instead, they rely on their anemones. Some species use the anemones like cutlery, dabbing them onto morsels of food and then bringing them over to their mouths. Others wait for the anemones to passively ensnare food, which they then scrape into their mouths with their front legs.
| the crabs cultivate “Bonsai anemones,” deliberately stunting their growth to keep them at a manageable size.
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| It wields sea anemones like boxing gloves; if it loses one, it makes another by bisecting the remaining one.
The American novelist S. E. Hinton once said, “If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky.” By that logic, boxer crabs are the luckiest creatures alive because they can turn one good friend into two by tearing it in half.