while on taveuni last year, i noticed little yellow things on a beach. everytime i tried to get closer, they would just disappear in the sand.
it took some time sitting really really still, but eventually even the close slowly ones came out again and continued with their odd behaviour: they waved with one claw, and they all did it synchronously.

i later found out that these crabs are called fiddler crabs (uca spp., in german: winkerkrabben, “waving crabs”).
the males in the uca-genus have asymmetrical claws - one is tiny, the other one incredibly oversize (up to half of their body mass!). they wave with the big one to get females interested (i’m think i’m gonna try that too :-)).
according to michael rosenberg of www.fiddlercrab.info, the crab is almost certainly a lemon-yellow clawed fiddler crab (uca perplexa).

[view photos: lots of crabs]

[view all posts of this group]

my commute to university is about 45 minutes in one direction.
that means i have 90 minutes of potentially unused/lost time per day, which i’m currently spending organizing and processing photos…

i joined lorri, born and murray that day, and we went north to naqara/somosomo because we wanted to do a hike up to lake tagimaucia - taveuni’s biggest freshwater lake (sometimes spelled tagimoucea or tagimoucia).
we had lost track of weekdays, and just across the street from our motel, there seemed to be a festival going on - loud music for several hours, lots of fijians around, children running around on the street, …
it was sunday, and the festival was “just” regular service. there’s only one church (building) in town, so every confession celebrates mass at another time, resulting in a whole day of church service.

i couldn’t resist taking some digital souvenirs: [more...]