Perhaps in most people's eyes crabs are just a delicacy for the dining table. But for someone who has made crabs his life's work, they are beautiful, mysterious creatures worth getting to know. Crabs first appeared on this Earth some 70 million years ago; they come in a vast number of different species, and are found everywhere, in all kinds of ecosystems--in the oceans, in lakes, in rivers and on land. Many crab species are extraordinarily abundant, with populations numbering in the hundreds of millions.

Ghost crab Horns on its eyes? There's nothing wrong--it's quite natural. The ghost crab species Ocypode ceratophthalma is found all over the world, but is rather rare at Hsiang Shan. Its diet includes tiny sea turtle hatchlings. Is this the cruelty of nature, or an essential way of maintaining ecological stability?

Researching crabs in Taiwan, I have had many unforgettable experiences: being surrounded by a blue army of soldier crabs on a lonely seashore; the sight of a beach dyed red by a horde of millions of feeding ghost crabs; or swathes of fiddler crabs waving their glittering claws in the sunlight. These and many other such sights have left an indelible impression in my mind.

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(facing page, top) Lone soldier crabs (Mictyris brevidactylus) are often gobbled up by the much larger ghost crabs.

(facing page, bottom) The soldier crabs are among of the most unusual crabs at Hsiang Shan. Usually they scuttle along in a straight path, but when they exchange threat displays they seem to embrace and dance.

(above) On the mud flats at low tide, millions of soldier crabs form a crab army. The rushing sound of them feeding in such vast numbers has a symphonic quality.

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Sentinel crab

Is it a submarine? No--it's a sentinel crab (Macrophthalmus banzai), its body hidden in the turbid water, looking all around with its periscope eyes.

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Ghost crab

Horns on its eyes? There's nothing wrong--it's quite natural. The ghost crab species Ocypode ceratophthalma is found all over the world, but is rather rare at Hsiang Shan. Its diet includes tiny sea turtle hatchlings. Is this the cruelty of nature, or an essential way of maintaining ecological stability?

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Ghost crabs

As the tide goes out, ghost crabs of the species Ocypode stimpsoni first feed in their burrows near the high water line. Then, when the surface has dried off slightly, at lightning speed the scarlet-shelled crabs begin to advance down the beach like a red storm, to snatch other crabs' food or even to make a meal of them. When night falls, they don suits of grey armor, and devour other crabs with seemingly demonic skill.

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Ghost crab

Ghost crabs guarding their eggs are furtive and hard to spot. They rarely reveal the secrets of their reproduction for the camera.

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Fiddler crab

Fiddler crabs of the species Uca borealis have an unusual choice of habitat: they live on muddy sandflats. Though their huge claws are beautifully colored and impressively shaped, they are not very mobile, so it seems they are there just for show--to scare others off--and not do any harm.

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Fiddler crab

Uca formosensis, which has a net-like pattern of lines on its carapace, is one of the larger fiddler crabs. It often builds a volcano-like wall of mud around the mouth of its burrow, as if to tell all other crabs: "This is my turf."

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As development approaches Hsiang Shan's intertidal zone, its hundreds of millions of soldier and other crabs will soon face extermination.

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Liu Hung-chang

Graduated 1990 from National Chunghsing University chemistry department

Began studying Taiwan's crabs in the third year of university

Now a doctoral student in the Department of Life Science at National Tsinghua University

Ghost crabs As the tide goes out, ghost crabs of the species Ocypode stimpsoni first feed in their burrows near the high water line. Then, when the surface has dried off slightly, at lightning speed the scarlet-shelled crabs begin to advance down the beach like a red storm, to snatch other crabs' food or even to make a meal of them. When night falls, they don suits of grey armor, and devour other crabs with seemingly demonic skill.

Ghost crab Ghost crabs guarding their eggs are furtive and hard to spot. They rarel y reveal the secrets of their reproduction for the camera.

Fiddler crab Fiddler crabs of the species Uca borealis have an unusual choice of habitat: they live on muddy sandflats. Though their huge claws are beautifully colored and impressively shaped, they are not very mobile, so it seems they are there just for show--to scare others off--and not do any harm.

Fiddler crab Uca formosensis, which has a net-like pattern of lines on its carapace, is one of the larger fiddler crabs. It often builds a volcano-like wall of mud around the mouth of its burrow, as if to tell all other crabs: "This is my turf.".

As development approaches Hsiang Shan's intertidal zone, its hundreds of millions of soldier and other crabs will soon face extermination.