common crabe

The sea is full of many different species of crabs. I’ll be covering three species of crabs. The species I’ll be covering are blue crabs, hermit crabs, and fiddler crabs.

The topics of growth, reproduction, and characteristics will also be covered.

Blue crabs come from the family Portunidae a group of animals having jointed legs, segmented body, and a hard outer shell. (Capossela, 1990) It is a crustacean as are lobsters and shrimps. This crab stays in water although it could survive shortly out of it.

The growth of blue crabs is slowed in areas of high salinity. In the waters of average salinity, male crabs may grow to seven-nine inches. Females seldom make it past six. They can live an average of 2-2 1/2 years, although some make it to four years of age. The crab has to shed his hard shell in order to grow. It sometimes has to do this 25-30 times in his life, for about two days each. At this time the crab is called a “softshell.” (Capossela, 1990) Small crabs shed every 3-5 days.

The blue crab occurs along the Atlantic Coast from Cape Cod south to Florida and around the Golf of Mexico to the Mississippi, and next to

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

It has long chilapeds and its eyes are detailed at the end of the eyestalks.

Blue crabs eat both plant and animal matter, living and dead. Then antennae and eyestallks are long, and the first pair of thoracic leg s are muich larger than the others. At this stage they are called zoea larvae, and they look more like shrimp than crabs. The second and the third pair of legs end in simple hooks and are used for walking and dragging itself along when it moves over the ground.

Hermit crabs have to go house-hunting now and then, so they can find larger shells to accommodate their increase in size as they grow. They carry large claw horizontally in front of the body and it has been seen to fiddle the smaller claw like a bow which simulates the playing of a fiddle. They have to seek protection for their soft, defenseless abdomens by inserting them into some hollow object which is usually the shell of a gasteropod mollusk. All About Lobsters, Crabs, Shrimp, and Their Relatives. (sullevant, 1992) If the crab sees that it is clean, he goes into it to see if his abdomen fits into the shell. : Sportsmans’s Press, 1990.

Approximate Word count = 1419
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.