Terrible photo... way too much exposure suddenly. By the time I'd sorted it out, the crab had scuttled off! Anyway, this is as much as I could save the photo. However, the crab is carrying lots of eggs underneath, hence the effort to save the photo.
Dead. Skeleton only.
Thanks to Ondrej Radosta (Czechia) for ID.
I came across these 2 crabs in, perhaps, a mating process. The top crab was carrying the other one and scrambling across the sandy sea floor when I tried photographing them.
Big, colorful crab. I was with the son of the head marine biologist there, exploring the tide pools for little creatures, and we poked this crab with our sticks to observe its defensive reaction.
At night and low tide in pool on reef flat