Regular print
Regular Prints are unsigned by the author and unlimited in reprints. They are museum quality prints, not to be confused with mass-posters. Made to order, they come in three standard different sizes but customized format can be ordered.
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Limited edition print
Signed by the author, they are limited to a worlwide total of 10 prints, all formats included. Collector's items, real artwork individually made to order, they are printed under the author's supervision on a paper used for museum exhibitions.
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Licenses
All images are right protected, which means we control the rights to these images in order to avoid conflicts with competing clients. Some images may be bought exclusively which prevents your competitors from using the same images.
Licenses are granted for a specific period of time. Prices vary according to usage. Read our FAQs as well as our terms and conditions for all details.
swimmer crabs on sea cucumber
These are two tiny swimmer crabs "lissocarcinus laevis", of a size of respectively and approximately 7mm (0.3 in) and 3cm (1.2 in), on a sea cucumber "Holothuria aculeata". They probably are baby & mother... The fifth or last pair of legs is flattened for better swimming and digging sand, thus their name of swimmer crabs !
Widespread in all oceans, sometimes at a rate of several million individuals per hectare, the sea cucumber recycle sediments. They have a huge role in the ecosystem of the seabed.
Despite their nickname, the cucumbers are not plants, but tubular animals that crawl in the ocean depths. They are very popular in the far East where they may be traded at high prices. These are explained by the aphrodisiac properties attributed to sea cucumbers. In China and some eastern countries, they are also consumed as trepang, a sweet in which the pieces are cooked, dried and added to soup.
The value and importance of sea cucumbers is however largely beyond their gastronomic qualities or their supposed effects on libido. The majority of the approximately 1 200 species of holothurians inhabiting the seabed belongs to a group of animals called "deposit feeders", literally eating sediment. By ingesting intensively and selectively surface layer of sediment and depositing their droppings, they alter the physico-chemical environment. Their abusive marketing is therefore a real threat for the ecosystem.
ISO 100, 150mm, f-40, 1/60 s.
