Tiny Crab Unintentionally Makes Awesome Sand Art

A friend of mine shared this article with me today. I enjoyed it and thought I would share with all of you on ATS.

There's a few more pics and a video on the linked webpage

Hope you enjoy it.

Tiny Crab Unintentionally Makes Awesome Sand Art

While these arrays of balled-up sand may look like the work of a nimble-handed artist, they're actually just the remnants left behind where a sand bubbler crab's been snacking. During low tide, the diminutive species, averaging less than a half-inch across, exit their burrows to scour the sand for tiny bits of organic debris in a radiant motion. While eating, the crabs ball the excess sand on their heads, then discard it when it gets too big for them to see over -- leaving behind a remarkable-looking reminder which helps them keep from searching for food in the same sand twice.

reply to post by MathiasAndrew

That is just beautiful. Concentric rings or a mystical Crabby Sandhenge? Thanks for posting. Very cool in a sideways walking kind of way.

Exits stage right...

Here, I embedded it for you.



This is awesome!

It looks like a Colosseum:



Source

reply to post by Casandra


Thank you for embedding the image.

Glad you enjoyed the article.

It does kinda look like that coloseum

Very nice video! What a cute little guy i thought it was absolutely amazing how fast it took that sand while searching for the food and rolled it up into a ball.

Mystery solved!!

It wasnt aliens making all those crop circles!!
It was tiny landlocked europeans crabs.

Wow great pic, thanks for shareing with the rest of us. It is truly amazing what some such small creatures can do.

Very cool and ever so slightly creepy...

reply to post by MathiasAndrew

I borrow...


Tell me... why do they make concentric circles instead of rows? Humans mow the grass, plow the earth and park cars in rows because we're stubborn? Tree rings, hurricanes, and the rings of Saturn are unknown to these little guys and yet they follow right along with some intuitive, innate, uhhh....

Edit: Oh, never mind. Apparently they have Crab Picasso's too:

wow...

Originally posted by Casandra
Here, I embedded it for you.

This is awesome!

"As above, so below"

Even the smallest creatures know this.

Thanks for sharing!

This is really cool!!

The crabs are getting smart... Too smart...

reply to post by LonelyGuy


especially when they are copying crop circles
here
compare

Dont tell me.... you still dont see what i am getting at? As is the same with all of my posts and threads? The animals globally are pointing too.

Wow That is Incredible and Yes it Does look like a Crop Circle some what .

that is neat. Crabs can make sand art also. i like the pisco one it looks like the crab was making a palm tree!! cool

Did the crab put the message in 8-bit binary that converts to ASCII in English? Now if it actually makes a coherent message, then that would be really amazing.

At least that's what that pattern on the crop circle being compared supposedly does.

If only my crabs would give me cool body art in my nether regions.



...

Just kidding

But yeah, that's pretty cool.

That is exactly what I'd do if I were trying to find tiny pieces of organic matter on the surface of a beach.

Just stack it on my head and move on: "Oh the ball of sand is too large to see over," I would think

(Just toss it to the side, on to the next one)