Summary

Mictyris longicarpus is an obligate air-breathing, forward walking crab that spends most of its time buried underneath the sediment. A popular and vibrantly coloured crab well known for the ‘army marching’ movement of entire populations up the intertidal zone.  It routinely comes up to the surface from its burrows when the tide retreats and simultaneously the population moves up the beach to feed. Fed on by a diverse range of predators and frightened easily by humans the solider crab has a unique corkscrew burrowing motion which allows it to rapidly escape predation and also breathe underneath sediment.