12-Legged Sand Crab

We found this little guy in the sand underneath the Oceanside pier. He's only about 1 mm long, and the movies below are at 40x. We've found other white sand crabs about an inch long (they're good for bait), and this might be a related species. However, it turns out to have 12 legs. Sand crabs belong to the order Decapoda, which means 10 feet. But this one has 12! Have we discovered a new order of crustacean, the Dodecapoda?



To get a better look at the legs, the crab was flipped over with a huge two-by-four (well, that's what it looked like under the microscope--in reality it was probably only the size of a tooth pick). At the beginning of this video, six legs can be clearly seen on one side. After a few minutes, this little guy figured out how to move by pushing his legs against the top of the drop of water. He's so smart!



I've been googling 12-legged crab and the only other creatures I've found are the horseshoe crab, and this unidentified greenie from CrustIDFAQs. Once again, it turns out it's easier to find interesting creatures than it is to identify them.