Diogenes heteropsammicola

Diogenes heteropsammicola is a species of hermit crab discovered during samplings between 2012 and 2016 in the shallow waters of the Japanese Amami Islands. This D. heteropsammicola is strongly associated with the walking corals.[1] This hermit crab species is unique due to the discovery that they use living, growing coral as a shell. The live in the inside of the coral and vary from other types of hermits.[1] Crustaceans of this type commonly replace their shell as the organism grows in size, but D. heteropsammicola are the first of their kind to use solitary corals as a shell form. Heteropsammia and Heterocyathus are the two solitary corals that this hermit species has been observed as occupying.[2] These two coral species are also used as a home by symbiotic sipunculans of the genus Aspidosiphon, which normally occupy the corals that the were previously occupied by crabs.[1]

Diogenes heteropsammicola
A, an individual in an aquarium, carrying the coral. B, an individual removed from its host coral. Scale bar: 1 mm.
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Malacostraca
Order:	Decapoda
Suborder:	Pleocyemata
Infraorder:	Anomura
Family:	Diogenidae
Genus:	Diogenes
Species:	D. heteropsammicola
Binomial name
Diogenes heteropsammicola Igawa & Kato 2017[1]

The discoverers of this species are Momoko Igawa and Makoto Kato of Kyoto University, Japan.[1]