Calappa (crab)


Calappa is a genus of crabs known commonly as box crabs or shame-faced crabs. The name box crab comes from their distinctly bulky carapace, and the name shame-faced is from anthropomorphising the way the crab's chelae fold up and cover its face, as if it were hiding its face in shame.

Species

There are 43 extant species in the genus:
A further 18 species are known only from fossils.
Fossils of within this genus can be found in sediment of Europe, United States, Mexico, Central America, Australia and Japan from Paleogene to recent.