The Long-Armed One 2010 | Hijri 1431

"Dare not come near!" seems to warn clenching its pliers-like claws, as a fighter challenges his opponent for a bout—the fiddler crab—those inhabitants of 'under' the topsoil on the riverbed, beside the sunbathing oscillating river.

Their 'arena' shudders with the thumping of an approaching giant—the man—no sooner he goes near the crab those 'fight inviters' with their unusually long arm with large claws than the other they drawback into their dwelling.

Interestingly it is only the male that has the long-claws used for complex semaphore signals—[1. an apparatus for visual signaling (as by the position of one or more movable arms). 2. a system of visual signaling by two flags held one in each hand.]. Semaphore

was widely used before the advent of electricity.

These crabs live on tropical waterfront. They emerge to feed at low tide and retreat into their burrows at high tide. They wave their claws for marital display or to fight with other males who intrude into their territory and try to throw each other on its back. Fiddler crabs make a chirruping sound like

grasshopper if another crab tries to enter its burrow. It makes the sound by rubbing a claw against its shell. These crabs use their other normal arm for feeding themselves.

They are scientifically known as Crustaceans—any of a large class (Crustacea) of mostly aquatic mandibulate arthropods that have a chitinous or calcareous and chitinous exoskeleton, a pair of often much modified appendages on each segment, and two pairs of antennae and that include the lobsters, shrimps, crabs, wood lice, water fleas, and barnacles according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. MH

[Graphics: Feroz]

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THE LONG-ARMED ONE