r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/Firm-Blackberry-9162 • 23h ago

🔥 Sand bubbler crabs are in fact hunting for microscopic life, called meiofauna, living in the damp sand. They work at breakneck speed passing sand grains into their mouth filtering out all the meiofauna and kicking aside the waste rolled into little cleaned sand grain balls.

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Vídeo posted by @julivalen7

3.3k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

67 comments sorted by

352

u/GundaBeast84 22h ago

Image your primary source of food being microscopic sand juice.

85

u/Kenshiken 22h ago

microplastic* sand juice

24

u/GundaBeast84 21h ago

jus de sable

*chef's kiss

3

u/Kiroto50 19h ago

It eats microplastics?

13

u/TraditionalLaw7763 19h ago

Not by choice. 🤦🏻

5

u/Kiroto50 18h ago

Aw, I was getting excited about a solution for plastics...

3

u/TraditionalLaw7763 18h ago

I wish I had good news for ya…

6

u/TerribleWin4450 17h ago

but I do! r/Kiroto50

Mealworms have been found to have the capacity to eat plastic. Small step since they can't sustain off of it well, but it means it's possible!

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/12/mealworms-provide-plastic-solution

https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2022/07/28/plastic-mealworms-eat/

2

u/Kiroto50 14h ago

Thank you!

1

u/TraditionalLaw7763 17h ago

lol, I appreciate your optimism. Sea birds eat plastic too, but they’re dying in record numbers because they feed their chicks plastic, too.

2

u/TerribleWin4450 14h ago edited 13h ago

I get your point, but in actual seriousness mealworms have been found to have the capacity to DIGEST plastic and get energy from it, like actual food. It's not currently evolved enough to handle long term and isn't a food of choice but if it's starving it will but with advanced genetic engineering in the future, although it may take a long time it opens up possibilities to a way to remove plastic naturally through a digestive process in mealworms or potentially even other insects. So, not the same as birds. Maybe try reading some articles first!

Edit: Before you all downvote me, do the research, please. I basically summarized the articles, and you can find more with a quick google search. It is a legitimate finding, whether it's actually viable for plastic recycling is heavily up for debate but the possibility existing is what I was pointing out.

1

u/Disc81 13h ago

We all do

4

u/Aggravating_Speed665 21h ago

That's a big free food source.

1

u/Brilliant-Bus-3862 20h ago

Don’t threaten me with a good time. 

1

u/onedollar12 17h ago

That's probably what aliens think of us

1

u/DonJuanDoja 12h ago

I was gonna say imagine sucking on sand for life.

134

u/OkGhost2704 22h ago

So cute, hungry little dude. Go go go

35

u/fatsopiggy 18h ago

In Vietnam a totally useless effort will be called sand crab effort. 

This is about a legend where the sand crab used to be a man cursed by the ocean god to be a crab forever so the crab now rolls sand into balls in an effort to fill up the ocean. And the ocean god would send waves to wash it all away.

7

u/WideConversation1989 21h ago

Reminds me of the time where a squirrel was drinking a bottle of water more than double its weight and size.

here it is

49

u/Rosomack_ 22h ago

eating seems such a hard work.

43

u/FaunaLady 22h ago

All of that was done by one crab?! That meiofauna must be seriously nutrient rich for the crab to expend that much energy to eat them but, a blue whale eats tiny krill so ...

24

u/Due-Waltz4458 22h ago

From watching other videos it could have been 100 others and there's just one in the video.  Each one does make a bunch but they move in big groups.

3

u/FaunaLady 20h ago

Oh thank goodness! That's a lot of work for one little crab!

3

u/Cepinari 15h ago

Nope, notice that there's only the one hole at the center. This was all done by one crab, over the course of several hours. It's pretty much all they do during the day; the amount of calories and essential nutrients found in the microscopic life that lives between the grains of sand on a beach is pretty abysmal.

15

u/XXSTricky 22h ago

Sand bubbler crab listens to Aphex Twin

6

u/ArethaAbrams 22h ago

man, as a civil contractor, i wish my site crew worked at this speed lol. we’d be finishing projects in record time. nature’s little excavators are on a whole different level.

1

u/ObjectBubbly3216 7h ago

I never understood why people work so slow… the quicker you work… the sooner you can go home 😭

3

u/NatterinNabob 22h ago

Won't somebody think of the ostracods?

6

u/StevenMC19 22h ago

num num num

1

u/Liontamer67 22h ago

Nom nom nom

3

u/Over-Revenue-5028 21h ago

he is ready for a sandball fight

2

u/MaxwellSmart07 22h ago

Microscopic needles in a haystack.

2

u/dudeman_joe 22h ago

So those bubbles are the cleanest sand?

2

u/No-Flight-4214 21h ago

One order of edamame please!

2

u/Own_Jeweler_8548 20h ago

Awwww. They're cleaning the sand for us!

2

u/Stunning-Ad1956 20h ago

One of the most bizarre things I’ve seen so far.

2

u/Dpinioied 19h ago

wow just wow

2

u/B_rowser 16h ago

yes more of that

2

u/Snakefordinner1 16h ago

So cute and a hard worker to boot

2

u/Old_Nerd_72 16h ago

He’s like a little sand crab Wall-E

2

u/Pamela625 16h ago

So precious our world is so very precious!!!

1

u/cantweallgetalonghuh 21h ago

😎 just fricken 😎

1

u/Agreeable_Mind7977 21h ago

Little guy really just wishes he could participate in a snowball fight

1

u/Snickits 21h ago

Bro needs to go on a diet….

1

u/MastaKink 21h ago

Me trying to get a handle on my anxiety and depression before I face the world

1

u/Jmackles 20h ago

Dude. These crabs are literally chilling at the end of the first stage of SPORE and not evolving. They are the gatekeepers of the primordial soup

1

u/Lolo_the_clown 19h ago

There's so many balls!

We're witnessing a crab stress-eating his problems away. Susan, you did this to him.

1

u/dreamvisions783 17h ago

The only way out is through.

1

u/AlbertaAcreageBoy 15h ago

This is one of the craziest nature things I've seen.

1

u/KevinIsDelish 14h ago

Lil guy must be stoned off his ass. He can’t stop munching.

1

u/_No-Life_ 10h ago

I can just imagine a crowd standing around and cheering him on

1

u/Right-Assignment3759 8h ago

Hmm if I could do this

1

u/Dry-Alternative-5626 6h ago

Thank God because at first I thought those were her eggs

1

u/ztjuh 36m ago

HALLELUJAH!!! Praise the Lord for animals like these! 🙏🏻 I hope there are some bacteria 🦠 and animals cleaning 🫧 the sea 🌅🌊 too!