Grimothea planipes

Grimothea planipes is a bright red animal, up to {{convert|13|cm}} long.{{cite book |author=Sam Hinton |year=1987 |title=Seashore Life of Southern California: an Introduction to the Animal Life of California Beaches South of Santa Barbara |edition=2nd |series=Issue 26 of California Natural History Guides |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-05924-5 |chapter=Phylum Arthropoda ("joint-limbed animals") |pages=131–161 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Malr3FFfMUAC&pg=PA151}} It resembles a true lobster, but has a shorter abdomen.{{cite book |author=Wheeler J. North |year=1976 |title=Underwater California |series=Volume 39 of California Natural History Guides |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-03039-8 |chapter=Marine animals: arthropod crustacea, echinoderms, and tunicates |pages=207–231 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=crarCqtdbUIC&pg=PA208}}

Grimothea planipes lives on the continental shelf west of Mexico.{{cite book |editor1=Robert Hugh Morris |editor2=Donald Putnam Abbott |editor3=Eugene Clinton Haderlie |year=1980 |title=Intertidal Invertebrates of California |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-1045-9 |chapter=Macrura and Anomura: the ghost shrimps, hermit crabs, and allies |author1=Janet Haig |author2=Donald P. Abbott |name-list-style=amp |pages=577–593 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NAybxQZvWI0C&pg=PA578}} It is usually found only south-west of San Diego, but in warmer years, its range may extend northwards into California. This is usually indicative of an El Niño event.{{cite book |author1=Ronald H. McPeak |author2=Dale A. Glantz |author3=Carole R. Shaw |year=1988 |title=The Amber Forest: Beauty and Biology of California's Submarine Forests |publisher=Aqua Quest Publications |isbn=978-0-922769-00-1 |chapter=The ever-changing forest |pages=32–41 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LlWovo8kJu4C&pg=PA40}} Adults migrate vertically to near the ocean surface and large numbers occasionally wash up on beaches during warm water events. The southern limit of the species' range is in Chile.{{cite journal |url=http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/publications/all/wa/15-4/lobster |journal=Water & Atmosphere |volume=15 |issue=4 |year=2007 |title=Lobster à la carte |author1=Kareen Schnabel |author2=Amelia Connell |name-list-style=amp }}

The life cycle of Grimothea planipes appeared for a long time to form a paradox: while an adult population was maintained along the south-western coast of the United States, the planktonic larvae they released were immediately swept by the California Current thousands of miles out to sea. A solution was proposed whereby the larvae use an opposing undercurrent at a lower depth to return to the continental shelf, and this hypothesis was confirmed by sampling different depths of water with a plankton recorder.{{cite book |author=Ernest Naylor |year=2010 |title=Chronobiology of Marine Organisms |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-76053-9 |chapter=Plankton vertical migration rhythms |pages=134–149 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7zLqjQlzM60C&pg=PA168}}

File:Grimothea planipes - MBA.webm

Grimothea planipes usually feeds on protists and zooplankton, but will feed by filtering blooms of diatoms.{{cite journal |author=Alan R. Longhurst, Carl J. Lorenzen & William H. Thomas |year=1967 |title=The role of pelagic crabs in the grazing of phytoplankton off Baja California |journal=Ecology |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=190–200 |doi=10.2307/1933100 |jstor=1933100}}

As the most abundant species of micronekton in the California Current, Grimothea planipes fills an important ecological niche converting primary production into energy that larger organisms can use.{{cite journal |author=Carlos J. Robinson |author2=Vicente Anislado |author3=Antonio Lopez |year=2004 |title=The pelagic red crab (Pleuroncodes planipes) related to active upwelling sites in the California Current off the west coast of Baja California |journal=Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography |volume=51 |issue=6–9 |pages=753–766 |doi=10.1016/j.dsr2.2004.05.018}} G. planipes is accordingly an important food item for many species of birds, marine mammals and fish. It is favoured by tuna, leading to one of the species' common names – "tuna crab". Other fish known to feed on G. planipes include billfishes, yellowtail amberjack, sharks{{cite book |editor1=Larry Glenn Allen |editor2=Daniel J. Pondella |editor3=Michael H. Horn |year=2006 |title=Ecology of Marine Fishes: California and Adjacent Waters |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-24653-9 |chapter=Feeding mechanisms and trophic interactions |author1=Michael H. Horn |author2=Lara A. Ferry-Graham |name-list-style=amp |pages=387–410 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qdzg0Vfql2sC&pg=PA406}} and Epinephelus analogus.{{cite web |author1=Susan M. Luna |author2=Nicolas Bailly |name-list-style=amp |url=http://www.fishbase.org/summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=348 |title=Epinephelus analogus Gill, 1863, spotted grouper |work=FishBase |access-date=February 15, 2011 |date=October 6, 2010}} The diets of gray whales,{{cite book |author=Robert Busch |year=1998 |title=Gray Whales: Wandering Giants |publisher=Heritage House Publishing |isbn=978-1-55143-114-7 |chapter=The nature of the beast |pages=1–66 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=owKh7oDYqgYC&pg=PA48}} Bryde's whales,{{cite book |author=Mercedes Guerrero, Jorge Urbán y Lorenzo Rojas |year=2006 |title=Las Ballenas del Golfo de California |publisher=Instituto Nacional de Ecología |isbn=978-968-817-761-7 |language=Spanish |chapter=Conocimiento biológico de los cetáceos del Golfo de California |pages=157–406 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kDWy9Px7XakC&pg=PA239}} blue whales and sea otters{{cite book |editor1=George A. Feldhamer |editor2=Bruce Carlyle Thompson |editor3=Joseph A. Chapman |year=2003 |title=Wild Mammals of North America: Biology, Management, and Conservation |edition=2nd |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-0-8018-7416-1 |author=James L. Bodkin |pages=735–743 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xQalfqP7BcC&pg=PA739}} all include G. planipes. The Mexican endemic bat Myotis vivesi also feeds on G. planipes at some times of the year.{{cite web |url=http://www.expeditions.com/DER_Details113.asp?DailyReport=151587 |title=January 6, 2011. Isla Monserrat & Isla del Carmen |work=Daily Expedition Reports |author=William Lopez-Forment |access-date=February 15, 2011 |publisher=Lindblad Expeditions & National Geographic |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110710211836/http://www.expeditions.com/DER_Details113.asp?DailyReport=151587 |archive-date=July 10, 2011 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} Off Baja California, the stomachs of some loggerhead sea turtles have been observed to contain only G. planipes.{{cite web |url=http://www.fao.org/fishery/species/2748/en |work=Species Fact Sheets |title=Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758) |publisher=Food and Agriculture Organization |access-date=February 15, 2011}} Since G. planipes may be washed ashore in large numbers, it can be a valuable addition to the diets of seabirds such as the herring gull (Larus argentuatus), whose food supply is usually diminished in El Niño years.{{cite journal |author=Brent S. Stewart, Pamela K. Yochem & Ralph W. Schreiber |year=1984 |title=Pelagic red crabs as food for gulls: a possible benefit of El Niño |journal=The Condor |volume=86 |pages=341–342 |url=http://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/condor/v086n03/p0341-p0342.pdf |doi=10.2307/1367007 |issue=3|jstor=1367007 }}

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Category:Squat lobsters

Category:Crustaceans of the eastern Pacific Ocean

Category:Crustaceans described in 1860

Category:Taxa named by William Stimpson