{"id":5744,"date":"2012-05-28T13:54:44","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T03:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=5744"},"modified":"2012-05-28T17:17:19","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T07:17:19","slug":"victorias-orange-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/nature\/victorias-orange-army\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria&#8217;s orange army"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thousands of Giant Spider Crabs (<em>Leptomithrax gaimardii<\/em>) congregate in Port Phillip Bay every year before their winter moult.<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>These crabs are hard to spot when they&#8217;re on their own, as algae, sponges and sea squirts set up house on their shells. But it&#8217;s hard to miss thousands of orange crabs marching across the sea floor, especially if you&#8217;re a hungry predator.<\/p>\n<p>The Spider Crab is usually protected by its hard shell, but this body armour doesn&#8217;t expand as they grow. As a result, they have to shed it every year and expand in size before the new one hardens. It&#8217;s a necessary process, but one that leaves them soft and vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p>This vulnerability may explain the huge congregation of crabs in the shallow waters of the bay. By moulting in a huge group, an individual crab can reduce its chances of being eaten by a stingray or a seal. They even appear to moult simultaneously in an effort to increase their chances.<\/p>\n<p>Source:<a href=\"http:\/\/museumvictoria.com.au\/about\/mv-blog\/may-2012\/orange-army\/\"> Museum Victoria<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Thousands of Giant Spider Crabs (Leptomithrax gaimardii) congregate in Port Phillip Bay every year before their winter moult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,6,8,10],"tags":[169,74,238,336],"class_list":["post-5744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-biology","category-nature","category-science","category-video","tag-nature-2","tag-science-2","tag-science-video","tag-spider-crabs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5744"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5782,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5744\/revisions\/5782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}