CRUSTACEA 



Decapoda macrura 



Among the Decapoda macrura, that is, those crustaceans with 

 ten legs and a tail (telson), there is a lobster of the genus 

 Panulirus, a wonderful green, black and white creature, 

 which gastronomically speaking is in no way inferior in 

 its delicate flavour to the Mediterranean craw-fish Paluniris 

 vulgaris. 



Besides this Panulirus there is a prawn, belonging to the 

 same group of macrura, reminiscent of the Mediterranean 

 Homarus gammarus or lobster, although smaller, hardly 

 reaching three inches in length. This prawn deserves to be 

 remembered because of its strange association with a small 

 fish that looks like a blennius. 



On various occasions, first of all on the island of Sheikh 

 Said, then later on the shores of several islands in the Dahlak 

 archipelago, I observed during my underwater excursions, 

 small heaps of sand about six inches across, surmounted by 

 a crater of less than an inch. Near these there would be a 

 small fish about three inches long. As soon as this fish 

 became aware of my presence it frisked into the crater, 

 sometimes remaining there with its front part sticking out, as 

 if waiting for further developments. I could never understand 

 how the little fish had managed to make its den with its 

 pectoral fins and wide tail and thought, therefore, that the 

 sand heaps were nothing but the abandoned holes of some 



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