A new species of crab has been discovered off the coral rubbles in the coast of Guam. It was named Harryplax Severus. It was named after famous book and movie fictional character Harry Potter, and Severus Snape.
Unlike common crabs, this crustacean is too small to eat. It only measures one centimeter wide, and one centimeter long. It thrives under fragments of old coral reefs. However, it has a longer antennae to extend its sight. It also has slender legs to walk swiftly around its habitat.
Jose C.E. Mendoza, one of the lead authors of ZooKeys paper who published about the newly-discovered crab species, is a huge fan of Harry Potter. This is why he named it after the famous boy wizard, and Harry Conley, the researcher who first collected samples of the crab in 1997 in Guam.
On the other hand, Severus, was named after Harry Potter’s professor, and an epithet that means harsh, rough, and rigorous which best describes the complicated process that researchers undertook to collect the crab. According to popsci, Mendoza named the crab after Professor Snape because he kept the biggest secrets in the story. This, according to him, represents how the species was kept from being unearthed until it was collected two decades ago.
Mendoza, a Filipino marine biologist, told GMA News Online that his newly-discovered crab “is only the second member of its family (Christmaplacidae) to be described.” He added that it has “reduced eyes, long and slender legs, and enlarged antennae—all adaptations for living in dark cavities and cave-like formations in the sea."
Prior to the discovery of the Harryplax Severus, Guam is known to be a habitat of different species of snakes. These reptiles are reported to propagate rapidly that it already imposes threat to their bird population. It has been reported that the US government will bomb the snakes with poisoned mice.
