crabbymaxie's Journal

Fall is my favourite time of the year! I go out to do some treasure hunting for adults: mushroom spotting! I bore my family-in-law with my endless stopping for mushrooms, but I really like "collecting" (taking a picture and ID'ing) as much of them as I can. Linked to this journal are all the observations I did this weekend. I spotted about five new-to-me species this weekend, a good score! Spotting Amanita muscaria is always a treat.

In my previous journal I wrote about my search for the Horse Crab (Atelecyclus undecimdentatus) and how it was suddenly spotted relatively a lot along our coastline. I went to have a look myself and found some. After that day, more observations were done by various people on other places so I was really curious to find out more about this. After a deeper dive into the observations and literature I think I found out some interesting stuff (more on that later)!

I went to the beach in the past two weeks as often as I could to find more of these guys, and I was lucky! I collected a specimen for the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (the first of this species found in our country) and some for my own collection. I learned a lot these past days about these crabs and about strandings/documenting these finds.

The coming days I will gather my thoughts and literature I found on comparable cases and put everything into writing. The crabs associated with this journal are the finds from past two weeks. To be continued!

After I saw various sightings on Waarneming.nl of the rare Horse crab (Atelecyclus undecimdentatus) in one particular place I ofcourse had to go check them out for myself, or I would not be Crabby Maxie! After a 2.5 hours journey by public transport I arrived at the beach of Wijk aan Zee. I walked to the shoreline and barely found any crabs. So, sort of disappointed I went for a coffee at a beach club, and on the way there spotted my first Horse crab! Turns out I needed to look for them in the furthest floodline! I had the coffee and then walked for about an hour along the floodline. And I was lucky! Four carapace and four claws. I also spotted a lot of parts from Necora puber. Great day & worth the travel!

Last time I was on the island of Ameland I saw a lot of my favourite crab, the masked crab (Corystes cassivelaunus). So ofcourse, when we had the opportunity to get a weekend off, we revisited this island. And I was not disappointed! There really are more masked crabs on this island compared to the others. Maybe there is a deep(er) sea trench in that part of the North Sea or something there? I'll have to find out! I was also surprised by some claws of Necora puber, they always have beautiful purple-red-blue hues.

For an university assignment I had to study mosses & lichens for a few days. Ofcourse I added them on iNaturalist, and in this journal post are all the things I encountered! I found out it's pretty difficult to ID mosses, and the AI kind of smells on my various ID-ing apps.

I never realised how diverse mosses & lichens can be. It was quite fun to study the difference between the moss-lichen ratio in two different areas on the Netherlands. Near the dune area (where I live) there were way more mosses compared to lichens than in the urban area close to Schiphol where my group mate lives.

I learned a lot and I don't think I'll skip mosses & lichens again when walking in nature! :-)

Had a great weekend on the island of Schiermonnikoog, one of the Wadden Islands of the Netherlands. It's a fourty minute boat ride from the mainland but you feel on a totally different place. Here a collection of all the great stuff I saw.

Secretly I was hoping to find a Goneplax rhomboides, but sightings are rare so I didn't get my hopes up. (Well, maybe I did, secretly!) I did not find one, but did see my favourite, Corystes cassivelaunus.

Interestingly there were loads of dead birds on the island. After some looking around and talking to people I found out there's a bird flu raging around the islands.

Ofcourse loads of C. maenas, Liocarcinus & some cool jellies and sea stars. My search for the G. rhomboides continues!

On one of the worst-weather days so far this year, I went out with a friend to look for mushrooms. There are a lot of them right now! Ofcourse I also went to the beach, but the wind and rain was so intense we couldn't really photograph all the nice crabs. I had to stop for my favourite though - Coryestes cassivelaunus.

Trying out the journal feature with a collection of today's observations. A great afternoon with many mushrooms spotted. Even found my favourite, Amanita muscaria. Fall is here!