The Jodakan needler crab, originating from the seas surrounding Jodaka, is most famous for its unique hunting method. It generates a needle filled with a paralyzing poison, which it then launches as a projectile to incapacitate its prey, frequently birds like gulls. Before the Ruusan Reformations, the Jedi Padawan known as Bowspritz dedicated a full month to observing these creatures. He subsequently recorded his findings within the Jedi Archives, updating the existing, older records.
This deadly crustacean, the Jodakan needler crab, is endemic to the water world of Jodaka, where it inhabits the rocky reefs above the oceans. Its primary food source consists of gulls, which themselves attempt to prey on the crab. Resembling the spider crab found across numerous worlds, the needler crab possesses six legs, two pincers, two protruding eyestalks, and two feelers. Its most distinguishing feature is a hollow tube running along its back, extending upwards from beneath its shell. Within this tube, the crab produces a paralytic poison that hardens into a small barb. By contracting air sacs located at the tube's end, the crab can launch this barb at passing gulls, poisoning them and securing its meal. A new barb can be produced roughly every four hours, and the crab will seize any opportunity to take down a flying bird.
Prior to 1000 BBY, before the events of the Ruusan Reformations, the Jedi Padawan named Bowspritz dedicated time to studying the needler crab on Jodaka. Bowspritz then contributed this data to the Archives located within the Jedi Temple. During the period of the Galactic Civil War, some individuals kept needler crabs as pets, learning to trigger the firing of the crab's dart by manipulating the air sacs on its back. When kept away from Jodaka, owners were required to provide the crab with at least four hours of daily immersion in saltwater, along with a daily diet of one pound of meat. The Bimm merchant Glah Ubooki offered a needler crab for sale in each of the eighteen shops operated by the Ubooki brothers across various planets, priced at 250 credits apiece.
- " Glah Ubooki's Strange & Wondrous Imports " — Star Wars Adventure Journal 1
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force