Ghost crabs

I'm a fiddler crab. Why don't you shoot me?! It's fiddler crab season!

—Daffy Duck to Elmer Fudd in "Rabbit Seasoning"

Actually, these are Atlantic ghost crabs (Ocypode quadrata), but they are related to fiddler crabs. Not much sport in shooting them, I wouldn't think, but a sporting gent might be interested in betting on them; watching these big specimens on the beach at Fisherman Island was a bit like watching a cockfight. (We chose favourites more or less at random—what would we know about crab fighting?—and cheered them on, but no money changed hands.)

He might've lost this round, but don't count this scrapper out.

Over on Assateague Island, the terrestrial crabs we saw were smaller (some really tiny), but more colourful. Despite the differences, I believe these represent O. quadrata as well; ghost crabs can change colour, though not nearly as quickly as, say, octopodes or chameleons. Their arena, in the beach grasses behind the dunes, was far less conspicuous, but a convenient boardwalk made some photographs possible.