‘We want to talk about ideas’: how Margate’s Crab Museum is trying to get people to think differently

A common box crab in a tiny policeman’s helmet at the Crab Museum, Margate. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

The Hawaiian pom pom crab is a small creature – just a few centimetres in width – with a remarkable skill. Its name is derived from its habit of carrying around two tiny stinging anemones in its pincers, which it waggles like a cheerleader to fend off predators.

“That is effectively tool use, something that we have only really associated with more ‘intelligent animals’,” says Bertie Suesat-Williams, a director of the Crab Museum in Margate in Kent, which calls itself “Europe’s first and only museum dedicated to the decapod” – but has ambitions far beyond that.