this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (2 children)
[–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 15 points 5 days ago

How dare you 😭 /j

They already have to worry about being caught for their medically precious blue blood 🥹

I looked it up and apparently people can and do keep them as pets, but they need a very big tank and are generally wild caught so folks often discourage keeping them

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] SuperPengato@scribe.disroot.org 24 points 5 days ago (2 children)

They're not crabs! They're not even crustaceans! They're not even mandibulates, which means insects and myriapods are more closely related to crabs than they are! They aren't even antennulata, which means they're further from crustaceans than trilobites were!

What they are is cheliceriforms, like sea spiders and arachnids.

They can be consumed, but not all of them, and there is a risk of poisoning.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] SuperPengato@scribe.disroot.org 1 points 2 hours ago

This really depends on how you define bugs, and I keep seing different definitions. The most restrictive one: Just the infra-order hemiptera (insects that generally have two pairs of wings, with the anterior wings covering the posterior wings while overlapping with each-other a bit... But some of them lost their wings altogether, like fire bugs). That includes stinkbugs, cicadas, and aphids but excludes other infra-orders of insects (butterflies, wasps, beetles, grasshoppers,flies...)

A broader definition is simply synonimous with insects.

Then, many definitions are polyphyletic (which means some bugs may be more cloaely related to some none-bugs than to each-other). A common one could be "land arthropods" and would include insects, arachnids, myriapods and isopods (which are crustaceans) but that'd still exclude limules, which are mostly aquatic. That would, however, now include some species of hermit crab and not others, which is too counterintuitive, so maybe explicitly ban decapod crustaceans from being bugs? Then again, I saw people refer to shrimps as bugs, and they're also decapods. You could add a size constraints, but the smallest crabs are smaller than the biggest true bugs (even by the narrowest definition).

Then, you could drop the "land" constraint and go back to a monophyletic definition by making it synonimous with arthropod. That definition would finally include limules.

But then, so are crabs, so are sea-spiders, and so are all the extinct guys like trilobites (which are more related to myriapods, crustaceans and insects), eurypterids (aka sea scorpions, more related to limules and arachnids) and radiodonts anomalocaris (less related to extant arthropods than they are to each-others).

trilobites

eurypterid

anomalocaris

radiodonts

Ok, maybe we can exclude radiodonts by taking the crown arthropod group. But triolobites and eurypterids must definetely stay!

By this broader definition (whether or not you keep radiodonts in it), the biggest bug ever known to have existed would've been jaekelopterus, one of the eurypterids, at 2.5 meters long! jaekelopterus

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 15 points 5 days ago (3 children)
[–] Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Perhaps we could make an argument for carcinization applying to naming as well? What if anything we can't place could end up getting named something related to crabs?

"It's 16:59 and some seconds and I need to run in less than a minute! We'll call it a somethingsomething crab! Now I need a beer and I've got a train to catch, see y'all Monday!"

[–] SuperPengato@scribe.disroot.org 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Don't blame me, I call them limules. I'd say something about carcinisation, but tbh I don't think they even look or move enough like crabs for it to apply. Someone just called it that and it stuck I guess.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

HEY EVERYONE ITS SUPERPENGATOS FAULT

AND I WOULD'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOU MEDDLING KIDS!

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 6 points 5 days ago

Crabshoe horse?