New discovery of the purple-clawed fiddler crab from National Chung Hsing University, published in an international journal

A resort development project at Shanyuan Bay and Meili Bay in Taitung fell through, but the team from National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) discovered a new species there, the "purple-clawed sentinel crab." This is the first new sentinel crab species found in the country, and the research results have also been published in the New Zealand journal Zootaxa.

The researchers said that many crab species other than commercially important ones lack research, which is equivalent to "waiting to be discovered and recognized" in the wild. It also shows that Taiwan's intertidal ecosystems are rich and full of vitality; crabs usually play the role of "shredders" in ecosystems, and if their populations decline sharply, it could affect the activity of decomposers and disrupt ecological balance.

New discovery by the NCHU Department of Life Sciences team

The purple-clawed sentinel crab is an animal in the family Macrophthalmidae and the genus Macrophthalmus. It was discovered by a team led by Shih Hsi-Te, a professor in the Department of Life Sciences at National Chung Hsing University, in the intertidal zones of Shanyuan Bay and Dulan Bay in Taitung, and Nanwan and Houbihu in Kenting. Team member and Department of Life Sciences assistant Deng Shao-Jun said that aside from commercial crabs such as swimming crabs, or brightly colored wild crabs that attract attention, other crabs are less studied by scholars, so many crabs in the wild are still waiting for scholars to "discover" them.