Exposed sand flats at low tide look like the closest thing to adesert in the Wet Tropics. They may appear devoid of animal life otherthan a few birds, yet there are animals there. Many of these animalshave only shown themselves to me once or twice in my lifetime. If allthe different species that I have seen living in the sand were ever toappear together, then the sand flats would be very interesting indeed.Let me show you the critters I happened to come across last Friday atthe mouth of the Barron River.When I was wading through a shallow sandy pool, a mangrove leafstarted to head off away from me at high speed. Number 6, I though as Iturned the leaf over to reveal a leaf carrying crab, as that is thenumber of them that I have seen over thirty years. These unusual crabshave repositioned four of their legs onto their back, so that they canhold onto a mangrove leaf. The crab’s body is about 1.5 cm across andfrom toe to toe would be about 6 cm. To take a photo, I picked up theleaf and turned it over. After a few photos, the crab let go of theleaf, rolled over and then slipped under the leaf and reattached itselfand made another bid for freedom.  Click on the photos to enlarge. The second surprise of the day was courtesy of a fisherman pumpingyabbies. I wanted to show a visitor what a yabbie looked like. When thepump was drawn up and the sand discharged, out came a small eel! The 25cm eel was very energetic and almost impossible to catch. After aminute of full power, it slowed down and could be photographed. Whensplashed with a little water, the eel regained its energy and suddenlystarted to drill into the sand with its tail. Within seconds, it hadreversed out of sight into the firm sandy surface. The final creature of the day is the hermit crab. Small hermit crabsappear in vast numbers. Large hermit crabs are rare. This one must havebeen the king of the hermit crabs as it was the biggest one I have everseen at Machans Beach and it had a very nice shell.