Talk:Heikegani

Taxonomy
I took the Taxonomy info from http://ctd.mdibl.org/voc.go;jsessionid=E9B27A44C1BAC5F0F12D32BB80C19982?voc=taxon&browser=r&termUI=255319#hierarchies hope its correct.

Close enough; I've tweaked it, and it's right now (although there are some doubts about Heterotremata as a group, but there's nothing we can do about that). --Stemonitis 10:07, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Can whoever edited the part about Carl Sagan (being wrong about the artificial selection) please have the source cited? Right now it's not very clear where this comes from. If you mention "other crabs" can you give examples? Also for taxonomy info there is a handy site called the tree of life web project found at http://tolweb.org/tree/ for all those interested. LaPalida


 * Hi. I didn't add that part, but I think I found the original source, so I put a reference in the article. -- 18.252.6.246 06:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it might be a good idea to reorganize the article, putting Carl Sagan and the Heike Crab's role in the Playstation 3 video game Genji: Days of the Blade into a trivia section. Post E3 2006, the "giant enemy crab" demoed in the game became a major internet phenomenon, largely because there was little understanding of why they were in a game based on history. I want to make sure its alright with the rest of you before I make any changes. I also found an image of the crab at http://www.biocrawler.com/encyclopedia/Image:HeikeaJaponica.jpg, which supposedly originated from Wikipedia.


 * Please don't post video game trivia in this article and confine it to the article about the game itself.--Eloquence* 18:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Example of selection pressure by humans or not?
I found the primary source for this article “Martin, J. W. (1993), The Samurai Crab” somewhat exasperating.

1. It is not enough to say that the ridges on the carapace serve a “functional purpose” for muscle attachment, (and by implication are not as they are through human interference) because there are many different patterns in which those muscles may be attached, as can be seen from the different designs of carapace for the many extant crab species. Therefore, there is no necessity that such ridges MUST be as they are for purely mechanical reasons.

2. It is not enough to go and on with how OTHER crab species have human images on their carapace without stating CLEARLY that humans do not and never have hunted these species, something that Martin never quite does.

3. It is not enough to point out that some crabs have only dim images of human faces on their carapaces without saying why this could not the result of fishermen being a little half-hearted about tossing such specimens back.

3. It is not enough to say that fossils of Samurai Crabs have been found which pre-date human settlement, without CLEARLY saying that THESE fossils also have comparable human images on their carapaces, something that Martin seems averse to do.

I don’t know why the author seems to skirt around these concerns, dealing with them only tangentially. I suspect it is not because he has any covert agenda, more like he does not really understand what is at stake, and has a poor grasp of methodology.

Nevertheless, from what I have read, it seems on the balance of the evidence, that this is not the trump card for evolutionary processes that Carl Sagan thought it was. Ironically, exponents of Intelligent Design could, had they the wits, argue that such adaptation are perfect examples of Intelligent Design, with the fishermen taking the god like role of “creating” an image which conforms to a pre-existing “form” which exist in their mind, an interesting form of Platonism, and also of ideas such as involution which posit strongly teleological features in evolutionary processes.

For myself, I can understand how fishermen throwing back those crabs with human image carapaces could lead to such crabs becoming the norm in wild populations. What I find more difficult is the question of how such adaptation maintains its momentum until the image becomes not just that of a vaguely human visage but that of a Samurai Warrior’s. Surely, if the fishermen throw ANY crab with a face-like image back, the selection pressure to make the Samurai Warrior face the group norm becomes weaker and weaker. Myles325a (talk) 05:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What interests me is that Carl Sagan, reputedly a champion of skepticism, didn't see the potential for skepticism with respect to this issue and thus cite some more ironclad example of Artificial Selection. He points out in the same episode of Cosmos that most modern farm animals have been selectively bred to maximize their utility to farmers. And of course there's the example of gardeners who produce variants of the Rose by very systematic breeding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.32 (talk) 02:29, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

"What I find more difficult is the question of how such adaptation maintains its momentum until the image becomes not just that of a vaguely human visage but that of a Samurai Warrior’s. Surely, if the fishermen throw ANY crab with a face-like image back, the selection pressure to make the Samurai Warrior face the group norm becomes weaker and weaker."

Because you have to think of evolution in smaller degrees. According to Sagan, "the crabs with patterns that look more like a samurai face, preferentially survive, until eventually, it was produced, not just a japanese face, not just a human face but the face of a samurai. Selection is imposed from the outside. The more you look like a samurai, the better your chances of survival. Eventually there are a lot of crabs that look like samurai warriors." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Easton (talk • contribs) 09:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Stephen Gould wrote an essay that mentioned these crabs and the story Sagan recounted on Cosmos. The Samurai-face crabs are not examples of artificial selection. After the crabs molt, their carapaces dry in a fairly random pattern. Besides, the Japanese have no problem eating crabs that appear to have human faces. 153.2.247.30 (talk) 02:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Could you cite the work in question please? That sounds like it would be a relevant source to add to this article.  98.24.120.26 (talk) 09:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Wording Change
Reading the article, I'm I a bit concerned about the consistency of the wording. This article has a grand total of two sources, the claims of one addressed as an interpretation, and the other addressed by saying that the other claim 'is false'. This part isn't reading to me like an encyclopedic article should, especially considering that only a single source is cited to support the claim. In truth, the paragraph as it stands reads very much like a segment from an amateur essay. I'm proposing that the section be reworded to something along the lines of this:
 * "This idea has met with some skepticism, as noted by Joel H. Martin. As humans don't use Heikegani for food, Martin posits that there is no artificial pressure favoring face-like shell patterns".

This strikes me as a more professional presentation of the same information, but I'm open to other ideas. If there's no objection I'll update the article in a couple of days. 98.24.120.26 (talk) 01:59, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be more (non-mythical) information about the crabs?
I find the Tale of the Heike fascinating, and doubtless it must be included in this article. Sagan's hypothesis is also needed. But shouldn't there be more information about taxonomy, biology, morphology, habits, etc, of the actual crab? The article is sorely lacking in these. For example, what's with the legs? Why does it have four large legs and what seem like non-functional tiny legs? 190.194.223.134 (talk) 13:32, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Ditto. I wondered the same thing.
 * I was also surprised at the lack of information regarding the actual crab. I was initially here to see if they were indeed edible, and found nothing. I went to find a reference and included it. Yes, they are edible but not eaten. Ifnord (talk) 22:52, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

That face...
Has anyone ever posited that, rather than pareidolia, the crab IS the source of the distinct and idiosyncratic face found in so many pieces of ancient Japanese art (samurai masks, oni statues, etc)? After all, it looks nothing like a typical face (particularly of the people in that area, look at that bulgey nose), yet has so many of the same features that get commonly drawn, especially the distinctive outwardly-curving tusk teeth. I find it far more likely that the crab was the model for the masks and statues. But obviously this would need a source, I just wonder if anyone has ever suggested that and published it somewhere. After all, it would be unprovable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.186.125 (talk) 04:48, 18 July 2019 (UTC)