A four metre stingray can eat 50 crabs a day.
They hoover up any who’ve lost their shell.
Our spy becomes the crab’s defender.
The ray will look for an easier meal.
Those with hard shells
aren’t worth the trouble.
Males even stand and fight.
Those with soft shells hide among the hordes.
Despite their brave defenders,
the ray can hunt them down.
It makes short work
of extracting meat from a shell.
The crab in hiding makes a getaway.
She needs to get lost in the crowd.
The ray’s victim is now an empty husk,
but he’s yet to have his 50-a-day,
and the fleeing crab is still in the open.
She’s made it.
Now, to vanish among the masses.
The greater the numbers, the harder it is for the ray.
Those with hard shells form an armoured fortress,
with the soft-shelled hidden beneath.
Left in the open,
Spy crab is now a sitting target.
It gets the full death-ray treatment.
A crab’s eye view of an untimely end.
But it’s still alive and kicking.
It’s not over yet.
This time, the ray did it a favour,
back firmly on its own eight feet,
our spy heads to the fortress.
It has a tower of crustaceans to climb,
but there’s no need,
the crabs come to our spy.
They create a shield of legs and armour,
a living citadel built on sand,
a brief monument to the strength of teamwork.
