\n The Asian shore crab, native to the Western Pacific, was found in a rockpool near Niton.\n<\/p>\n
\n Islander Mike Wilson made the discovery on Monday (September 14).\n<\/p>\n
\n He said he had never seen a crab like it in all his years going to the beach, so contacted marine biologist Theo Vickers to find out what it was.\n<\/p>\n
\n Theo said it is a Hemigrapsus sanguineus – or Asian shore crab – and while there had been reports of them on the mainland, this is a first for the Island.\n<\/p>\n
\n The crabs are considered a high-risk invasive species due to their rapid reproduction, aggressive feeding habits, and ability to displace native marine life.\n<\/p>\n
How to report sightings of the Asian shore crab<\/p>\n
\n Only a handful of sightings have been recorded in the UK.\n<\/p>\n
\n Theo said the crabs first reached British waters in the Channel Islands in 2000 and the coast of mainland Britain in 2014, in Wales and Kent.\n<\/p>\n
\n “They are invasive and do have a potential to negatively impact native intertidal communities if they reach high enough densities”, he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Asian shore crab (Image: Mike Wilson)\n<\/p>\n
\n “This single record isn\u2019t enough evidence to say anything like that is happening here at the moment though, so I don\u2019t think a major concern until or IF we see quite a few more records of them.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Best thing to do is just keep an eye out and report any more observations!”\n<\/p>\n
\n He said he reported the find to Roger Herbert, the Island\u2019s county marine recorder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Asian shore crab, native to the Western Pacific, was found in a rockpool near Niton. Islander Mike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-772785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}