Habitat

Ghost crabs live on the beach in the strip near the ocean where there is no cover under which they can hide from predators. http://www.scwildlife.com/pubs/septoct2006/atlanticghostcrab.html Habitat and natural community requirements while they have long been considered beach scavengers, a careful study of ghost crabs behavior. Showed that on oceanfront beaches they are more likely to subsist on a diet of the common filter feeding.Inhabitants of the, swash zone.Sandy beaches,like a clam, Donax and the mole crab,Emerita talpoida (wolcott1978). However ,there is also evidence that they may be effective scavengers of organic.matter;on more protected beaches their prey is believed to include egg and nestling of the loggerhead turtle, caretta caretta (Dodd 1988). Ghost crabs are largely nocturnal in nature and its rare to catch a glimpse of them during the day. Most feeding activity occurs at night, which reduces predation by visual predators like shore birds and gulls that might otherwise be capable of exerting considerable pressure on populations of this species. In the event that they do leave their burrow during daylight, their ability to change color to match the sand where they live lessens their chances of being seen on such a foray. The burrows dug by ghost crabs may be up to1.3 m deep (4 feet). Their habits of periodically closing the burrow opening with sand during the hottest part or the day and of remaining within the burrow through the colder months provide sufficient protection from the climatic extremes that fully aquatic species rarely encounter. these burrows, which take different shapes beneath the sand, are found from near the high tide line to a distance as 400 m (0.25 mile ) from the ocean. A distributional gradient based on crab age is typical for this species, with younger crabs generally burrowing closer to the shore than older individuals ( williams 1984). Challenges berry (1976) reported that, because of their burrowing and scavenging habits, ghost crabs might be adversely affected by increased oil tanker traffic and the resultant increase in the amount of stranded oil on ocean beaches. Contact with the oil ,appears not to be acutely toxic to the crabs, may cause a reduction in the breeding rate and increased mortality at molting. The decline in undeveloped beachfront habitat may represent the greatest threat to the ghost crab. In south carolina, coastal regions claim a significant portion of the states tourism. Rhode Island to Brazil. Along most South Carolina beaches.