Japanese Spider Crab

Decoration: This orange and white crab isn’t chameleonic (meaning it doesn’t change colors), but its mottled, bumpy carapace helps it blends into the ocean floor. Japanese spider crabs also go one (big) step further: They decorate themselves with sponges, anemones, and other animals that they cement to the tops of their carapaces.

Aspiration: When it’s young, in its larval stage, the young crab is small, round, transparent, and legless. Typically these larva drift like plankton on the ocean’s surface. Do they dream of the day when they’ll have the biggest legspan of all arthropods?