White mandarin vampire crab

Care at a glance

Overview

The white mandarin vampire crab is a small land crab from Borneo for a humid paludarium. It suits a keeper with some experience.

Caring for the white mandarin vampire crab

The white mandarin vampire crab lives on land, molts on land and uses water less than most vampire crabs. Build a paludarium of at least 10 gal (38 L) with about 80 percent land. Use damp coco fiber or sand, bark, moss and leaf litter. Add a shallow freshwater pool or bowl 6 to 10 cm deep, with easy exits.

Keep the air humid under a tight lid. Hold the water at 72 to 82°F (22 to 28°C), with a pH of 7.0 to 8.0, and skip copper. It leans carnivorous, so feed frozen bloodworm, small insects, bits of fish and crab pellets. Add a little fruit or vegetable, plus cuttlebone for calcium.

It is a peaceful, sociable crab that wants company of its own kind. Keep a group with more females than males, since males spar over territory. Any crab will eat shrimp, snails or small fish it can reach, so choose any tank mates with caution.

Females release fully formed young and are reported to carry the hatchlings on their backs for a few days. In a well-kept colony, breeding is moderately hard.

Good to know

Geosesarma pontianak is a sesarmid land crab, described by Ng in 2015 in Zootaxa from hundreds of specimens. The holotype male measures 13.4 by 13.2 mm, and the largest crab measures 13.9 mm across the carapace. Adults have a legspan near 4 cm. Ng gave it the same live colors as G. ambawang. The front half of the shell is dark brown to reddish brown and the back half cream or gray. It has bright red claws, reddish brown legs and the yellow eyes that give vampire crabs their name. The orange mandarin crabs of the trade, including the white claw form sold in the US, are shop forms not matched to that description. Before 2015, these Borneo crabs were sold as Geosesarma notophorum, a species from an island off Sumatra. The two mandarin crabs are still mixed up in shop listings.

In the wild

White mandarin vampire crabs come from lowland forest near small streams around Pontianak, in West Kalimantan on Borneo. The type series was collected at Gunung Kloncet, on the road to Anjungan.

Common questions

Related species

• Purple arm vampire crab

  Geosesarma noduliferum

  0.6 in (1.5 cm) · 10 gal (38 L)

  0.6 in (1.5 cm)10 gal (38 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Mandarin vampire crab

  Geosesarma notophorum

  0.6 in (1.5 cm) · 16 gal (60 L)

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  Purple vampire crab

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  Blue-leg vampire crab

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  Orange vampire crab

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  Red vampire crab

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