Who is sally lightfoot

The brightly-coloured Sally Lightfoot crab is a common sight along the shores and beaches of most islands. Sally Lightfoot crabs are brightly-coloured coastal scavengers, found in the Galapagos Islands and across the western coast of South and Central America.

They have an extremely generalist diet, feeding on anything from sea lion placenta to other crabs. This makes them an important part of the ecosystem, as they provide services such as keeping the shore clean of any organic debris and eating ticks off marine iguanas.

They are rumoured to have been named after a Caribbean dancer, due to their agility in jumping from rock to rock, their ability to run in four directions and their capacity to climb up vertical slopes.

This extreme agility makes them very difficult to catch. Adult crabs show characteristic intense blue and red colouring on their shells, with a white or pale blue underbelly. Each time they change their shell, the spots get bigger until the crab is eventually all red! Who walks on sunshine anyway? It was totally awesome to watch! Those are my 7 wacky facts about the Galapagos sally lightfoot crab , I hope you enjoyed them!

Please tell me if I left something out or if something is unclear. I love to hear your feedback in the comments. Keep helping me improve! Drew Haines is an animal enthusiast and travel writer.

She loves to share her passion through her writing. She graduated high school at sixteen and started her own business, Everywhere Wild Media. And she runs Everywhere Wild and JustBirding. She also guest blogs on Storyteller. She lived in Ecuador for 6 years and explored the Galapagos Islands. Currently based in N. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. I have also heard that when they moult they leave their stomachs behind with the old shell.

This explains how they manage to eat absolutely anything - they just leave their stomach ache behind. Table of Contents. In fact, everyone who has seen them has been delighted with them. The very name they are called by reflects the delight of the name. In spite of the fact that they swarm on the rocks at the Cape They seem to be able to run in any of four directions; but more than this, perhaps because of their rapid reaction time, they appear to read the mind of their hunter.

They escape the long-handled net, anticipating from what direction it is coming. If you walk slowly, they move slowly ahead of you in droves. If you hurry, they hurry. When you plunge at them, they seem to disappear in a puff of blue smoke—at any rate, they disappear.

It is impossible to creep up on them. It can also be seen along the entire coast of Central America and Mexico and nearby islands. The Sally Lightfoot Crab is a typically shaped crab, with five pairs of legs, the front two bearing small, blocky, symmetrical chelae chelae are also called pincers.

The other legs are broad and flat, with only the tips touching the substrate. The crabs round, flat carapace is just over 8 — 12 centimetres 3 — 5 inches in length. Young Sally Lightfoot Crabs are black or dark brown in colour and camouflage well on the black lava coasts of the Galapagos volcanic islands.