The Carcanbite / kärk·ən·bīt / The Blue Crabby Guy Sp: Cammarotruncus Nitidus “ Shiny Crab with a Trunk “ 1 foot wide ( front of shell to back ) & 4 inches tall ( tip of the leg to top of the shell )

Found Crawling around sea beds where Blue plant-like organism lye, is a small Crabby creature along the coasts of many island continents here on Baron, closely related to the Pot-Head Carcanaphant. As its namesake and general appearance may hint at, the Carcanabite is extremely analogous to Crustaceans such as Crabs of Earth, but only superficially. Aside from having an exoskeletal carapace, round & flat figure and pinching claws, these critters don't have much in common anatomically speaking.

Crabs have 10 pairs of limbs alike, whilst Carcanbites have 12, with a pair both evolving to become limbs that can be used for physical manipulation in each of the creatures. But Carcanbites only have 3 pairs of walking limbs compared to Crabs with 4 pairs, with Carcanbite feet being squared/cylindrical and Crabs having pointed ends to their feet. So, what about their 2 extra pairs of limbs? Where did they wander off to? Well at the rear, near where the abdomen is curled up to the underside of this guy, holds 2 pairs of harp points, like thorns. Their role is purely defensive, never really touching the floor to aid locomotion in any meaningful way, but still considered feet nonetheless. In other clades this species is related to, known as Laboropods or “ Skid Foot “, these “feet” are more smooth, like the quadrant to a circle, they act as natural supports to an extended abdomen that slides across the ground. These 2 pairs of Hindquarters are very inflexible, only having one joint that connects them to the main body. But in Carcanbites they can swivel around hemi-sperically with a ball joint, which serves a small intimidation like the standing hairs on a Cat.

Their claws are very strangely orientated from what us Terrans are used to. As they’re claws don’t branch from each other like fingers or even a Crab, but is a reversed joint that goes back onto itself, like if a scissor had its teeth on the handle ( and also lacked any blades ). This makes grabbing things very difficult, and would have to orientate its body in weird positions in order to achieve a successful hold. Instead, not used to truly grip, they’re more like the claws of a cat, being tucked to the side of the arm until they’re needed, immediately snapping into action. Utilizing its sharp points to stab and pierce soft-bodied organisms. Which if attacked by this creature ( if you’re small enough ) will die within an hour or two to blood loss, at which the Carcanbite will be following, awaiting your inevitable demise. Once you're down, the Carcanbite will scuttle to your fresh corpse and cut you into nicely diced pieces to consume with its toothless maw. Ready to feed, the Carcanbite will extend a leathery proboscis hidden inside its shell to pick up and swallow chunks of carrion, leaving large bones and other hard bits for the scavengers to take. The Carcanbite doesn’t only hunt small Turbinetes, but eats a combination of the Psammoids to build up interior fiber muscle which holds together its exoskeleton & build a wall around for its interior hydraulic muscles, which these use both fiber and hydraulics to move around as efficiently as possible on the seabed.

In addition to being able to feed, it uses its proboscis to drink saltwater to satisfy their thirst, and one more thing. The water they drink naturally contains chemicals from the grass below them, known as Psammoids, that they release as a byproduct of their natural processes. In concentrated enough sources, these compounds will form toxic substances that when inhaled can cause inflammation and paranoia in some species of Psammoid. Many creatures on Baron have evolved ways to avoid this detrimental hazard, and so has the Carcanbite.

Before absorbing the oxygen in the water through spiracles behind of the head and out through ventral spiracles, there are tissues that stand right before the respiratory organs within the spiracles that detect and absorb incoming chemicals that can possibly endanger the respiratory and/or the nervous system. These tissues branch into vessels that direct the fluid into pores at the end of the mouth. This synthetic that the Carcanbite holds will usually stay stored in those pores for a large portion of the day, until excreted by stretching of the skin when they become full.

But, in the likely chance where they become overwhelmed or frightened by a predator, they will excrete it from their mouth, which expands rapidly in warm water, filling the nearby environment with toxic fumes that most predators will try to avoid, as not even the Carcanbite itself is immune to such high concentration of solute. As apparent as this vulnerability is, the Carcanbite will shuffle quickly away from the toxin cloud it created, leaving behind a potential predator that could become high within a minute or two of being in the heart of the toxic cloud, and swim around wasted.

Their closest cousins that have been studied elsewhere, known as the Pot-Head Carcanaphants are mighty similar to their overall lifestyle, but they do have a slight anatomical difference, as their entire dorsal has a rim on its edges that holds sticky mucus that doesn’t dissolve easily, which it utilizes clippings of Psammoids to disguise its top with and hide in plain site ( if there short statute & blue coloration hadn’t already made them invisible enough ). Although they too share a quality of showing strange displays for their mates, as males will often try their best to impress a female in the vicinity. In the Carcanbites case, they compete with other males to present how large of a toxin cloud they can create. Who knew showing off your defensive capabilities could be so attractive, eh?