Spikey Sand Crab or Susanoo Crab (Susanowo)

The Spikey Sand Crab is predominantly recognized as a nuisance creature for Talithans who frequent the ocean side beaches of Anunitum. The crabs are the same color as the sand and can blend in when they’re not moving. Their appearance giving them the illusion of a bumpy rock. They can also creep slowly with their bodies low to the ground, sometimes allowing them to creep closer to a nonobservant person.
They are found mostly on the Great Island of Anunitum. A smaller and less numerous species can be found on the Great Island of Simmah. The larger Anunitum crabs are the more aggressive of the two, but the smaller Simmah crabs will steal food if left alone.
The species has learned that the humans are an excellent source of free food. They will steal from poorly guarded plates, picnics, and sometimes food stalls. They can be especially challenging during the Emporium Under the Sun. After one celebration had an unusual amount of invaders, a journalist reporting on the event called them Susanoo Crabs. They took the name from the trickster Earth-Japanese sea spirit. The name stuck. They are generally called spikey sand crab most of the year. But when the Emporium comes around, the name may change socially to Susanoo.
The species is plentiful and population rises right before the Emporium Under the Sun bazaar. This has led to a tradition of eating them during the holiday. It’s the one day the Vocation of Preservation doesn’t worry about the numbers farmed.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The Spikey Sand Crab is a flat and oval shaped crab-like crustacean. Its shell is light tan, the same color as the sand, has small spikey lumps. They only a 2 to 3 cm tall, but can still be very unpleasant to step on. Their real purpose is to help them escape some predators in the ocean. There are creatures in the ocean who don’t eat with teeth. Instead, they have a thick mouth structure with lips that grip. They will crush and then swallow their food whole.
The bumps on the back of the crab are shallow. If enough force is put on them, they will break, creating a sharp edge that will cut the lip of the toothless predators open. They can also use their large claws to push themselves. The combination of the sharp pain, and then having the sharp edge dragged across the lip, can be enough pain to encourage the creature to open their mouth.
Their shells are fairly flat, allowing them to hide in the rock crevices. Their six back legs are similar to Earth crabs, though somewhat long and thin. However, they have two sets of claws. One is a larger flat set that is used as a weapon and to help them move through water. The other set is a smaller set, closer to their mouth, they use to manipulate food and eat. Unlike the crabs that developed on Earth, Talithan crabs have ten limbs.
The crabs have oval-shaped bodies, with the Anunitum species growing as long as 30 cm long. Their legs can be as long as 25 cm, with their claws coming in just a little shorter at 21 cm max. The Simmah species is smaller, with a max body size of 21 cm. Their claws are also slightly smaller in proportion to their bodies, maxing out at 13 cm.

Genetics and Reproduction

There are two different reproductive lifecycles between the Simmah and Anunitum varieties of the Spikey Sand Crab. The one thing both species have in common is their migration. They will return to their birthplace to molt and mate.
A large percentage of them return to the base of the mountain ranges that run along the borders of the two continents. There are other rocky areas along the coasts, especially in Simmah, which is a rougher continent. Some have made these places their home of origin. It is more common with the Anunitum crabs, who have traveled further from the northern mountain range in search of people to steal food from.
The Simmah crabs develop eggs in at the beginning of spring and are ready to molt, and mate, about forty-five days after the cycle starts. When it’s time, the females put out a scent that attracts males in the area.
Male crabs, who only molt once but can breed at any time, leaving their sperm in thin sticky ribbons on rocks near the females. When all the males have left their gametes, the female will pick up the ribbons they determine suitable and store them in her body. She will then hide among the rocky outcroppings at the base of the mountains, near the ocean, until her shell has hardened.
The main difference between the Anunitum and Simmah’s mating cycle is the later molting and breeding pattern of the Anunitum crabs. They start their cycle in late spring, so the babies will hatch and be a few months into their development by the time summer hits. The beaches become a popular tourist destination and an excellent source of food.
The top shell of crabs, regardless of sex, is hard and dense. The bottom is a series of plates. In the male they are tight, but not being connected gives them a little more flexibility for movement. In the females, there’s a small gap in which they lay their eggs. They hold the collected sperm for several breeding cycles and slowly use it up.
When the females have no more, they can put out a mating call for more males, but they will collect less with the harden shell. The small gap makes collecting the semen trails slower and they may dry out before she’s collected as much as she did that first cycle. Older crabs will lay fewer and fewer eggs.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

The Talithans don’t use a Latin name based taxonomy system. Instead, it’s setup similar to the identity system they use for humans. Animals are selected at random and their DNA is coded. Human DNA is treated the same way, creating a unique identifier that someone carries with them for life. It allows them to trace lineage. Of course, with the animal species, the family tree is far more complicated than that of humans.
With the numbering system above, they mostly took the common names for Talithan animals from Earthian names. When they first landed and had thousands of new species to name and it was easier to reuse an old system. Instead of studying their ancestors before finding names, they simply looked for a Earth example that was similar. The early Talithans had access to an AI system that made this fairly quick.
Once the hardware hosting the AI stopped functioning, Talithans were left to looking the animals up in the database. By then, they already had names for a large number of animals.

History

Though the Talithans have tried to affect the biome of the planet as little as possible, the crabs are one example of where their presence has caused change. There was only a single species of this crab when they arrived, found on the ocean side of Anunitum and Simmah. The Talithans in Simmah built their city on the sea side of the northern continent, further away from the area where the crabs lived.
The people who live in Simmah will occasionally visit that side of the continent, but in much smaller numbers. The Anunitum residents visit their beach often. It’s also used for some of their larger cultural events, most notably the Emporium Under the Sun. Over time, the Anunitum crabs have grown larger and more aggressive than their original counterparts.
The Talithans have taken some steps to keep the crab’s numbers from exploding, most notably, turning them into a festival food. Members from Vocation of Preservation(organization:4484bccb-7067-4bfd-97d8-cc0197be5636) will also travel to the beach a few times every sol cycle. They put out food to tempt the crabs and count the number of those who show up. If the population has had a significant explosion, they’ll catch them and turn them over to @[Pabulum Vocation to be used as food.

Geographic Distribution

• Great Island of Anunitum
• Simmah Great Island