One to a customer: associations between squat lobsters (Chirostyloidea) and their anthozoan hosts

During 2016–2017, the remotely operated vehicle Deep Discoverer photographed squat lobsters during expeditions to the central Pacific Ocean. Photographs showed at least five species of chirostyloid lobsters living on anthozoans at 270–3280 m depth. The lobsters usually associated with only one or two host species. Only one chirostyloid lived on an individual host colony at a time. They occupied different host species than the ophiuroid Ophiocereas oedipus , which also lives on colonial anthozoans, and did not seem to interact with predatory starfishes (Goniasteridae).