Callinectes sapidus, the blue crab, Atlantic blue crab, or regionally as the Maryland blue crab, is a species of crab native to the waters of the western Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and introduced internationally.
Cancer pagurus, commonly known as the edible crab or brown crab, is a species of crab found in the North Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, and perhaps the Mediterranean Sea. It is a robust crab of a reddish-brown colour, having an oval carapace with a characteristic "pie crust" edge and black tips to the claws. A mature adult may have a carapace width up to 25 centimetres and weigh up to 3 kilograms. C. pagurus is a nocturnal predator, targeting a range of molluscs and crustaceans. It is the subject of the largest crab fishery in Western Europe, centred on the coasts of the British Isles, with more than 60,000 tonnes caught annually.
The Florida stone crab is a crab found in the western North Atlantic, from Connecticut to Colombia, including Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, Belize, Mexico Jamaica, Cuba, The Bahamas, and the East Coast of the United States. The crab can also be found in and around the salt marshes of South Carolina and Georgia. It is widely caught for food. The closely related species Menippe adina is sometimes considered a subspecies – they can interbreed, forming hybrids – and they are treated as one species for commercial fishing, with their ranges partly overlapping. The two species are believed to have diverged approximately 3 million years ago.
The Jonah crab is a marine brachyuran crab that inhabits waters along the east coast of North America from Newfoundland to Florida. Jonah crabs possess a rounded, rough-edged carapace with small light spots, and robust claws with dark brown-black tips. The maximum reported carapace width for males is 222 mm, while females rarely exceed 150 mm. It is the closest relative to the European brown crab in the Western Atlantic.
Leptuca pugilator, the sand fiddler crab, Atlantic sand fiddler crab, or Calico fiddler, is a species of fiddler crab that is found from Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico. It lives in burrows in coastal and estuarine mud-flats, and can be extremely abundant. It can be differentiated from the morphologically similar Minuca pugnax and Minuca minax by the smoothness of the inside of its claws. One claw is larger than the other, and can be much larger than the crab's body, at up to 41 mm (1.6 in) long.
Cardisoma guanhumi, also known as the blue land crab, is a species of land crab found in tropical and subtopical estuaries and other maritime areas of land along the Atlantic coast of the Americas from Brazil and Colombia, through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, to the Bahamas, and north to Ponce Inlet, Florida Princess Place Preserve on the Palm Coast, and Bermuda. The species varies in colour from dark blue to brown or pale grey, and may grow to 15 centimetres (6 in) in carapace width and weigh over 500 grams (18 oz).
Crab meat or crab marrow is the meat found within a crab, or more specifically, the leg of a crab. It is used in many cuisines around the world, prized for its soft, delicate and sweet taste. Crab meat is low in fat and provides around 340 kilojoules (82 kcal) of food energy per 85-gram (3 oz) serving. Brown crab, blue crabs, blue swimming crabs, and red swimming crabs are among the most commercially available species of crabmeat globally.
Cancer productus, one of several species known as red rock crabs, is a crab of the genus Cancer found on the western coast of North America. This species is commonly nicknamed the Pearl of the Pacific Northwest.
Diogenes pugilator is a species of hermit crab, sometimes called the small hermit crab or south-claw hermit crab. It is found from the coast of Angola to as far north as the North Sea, and eastwards through the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and Red Sea. Populations of D. pugilator may be kept in check by the predatory crab Liocarcinus depurator.
Pilumnus hirtellus, the bristly crab or hairy crab, is a species of European crab. It is less than 1 inch (25 mm) long and covered in hair. It lives in shallow water and feeds on carrion.
M. mercenaria may refer to:
Pugettia gracilis, commonly known as the graceful kelp crab, is a species of small crab in the family Epialtidae. It lives among forests of kelp on the Pacific coast of North America.
Dyspanopeus sayi is a species of mud crab that is native to the Atlantic coast of North America. It has also become established outside its native range, living in Swansea Docks since 1960, the Mediterranean Sea since the 1970s, the North Sea since 2007 and the Black Sea since 2010. It can reach a carapace width of 20 mm (0.8 in), and has black tips to its unequal claws. It feeds on bivalves and barnacles, and is in turn eaten by predators including the Atlantic blue crab, Callinectes sapidus. Eggs are produced from spring to autumn, the offspring reach sexual maturity the following summer, and individuals can live for up to two years. The closest relative of D. sayi is D. texanus, which lives in the Gulf of Mexico; the two species differ in subtle features of the genitalia and the last pair of walking legs.
Oregonia bifurca, commonly known as the split-nose crab or the split-nose decorator crab, is a species of crabs belonging to the family Oregoniidae. It is a rare deep-water species that inhabits the tops of seamounts and guyots in the northeastern Pacific Ocean; from the Aleutian Islands, the Bering Sea, the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, to the waters off British Columbia. It is closely related to the more common shallow-water species Oregonia gracilis, the graceful decorator crab.
Declawing of crabs is the process whereby one or both claws of a crab are manually detached before the return of the live crab to the water, as practiced in the fishing industry worldwide. Crabs commonly have the ability to regenerate lost limbs after a period of time, and thus declawing is viewed as a potentially more sustainable method of fishing. Due to the time it takes for a crab to regrow lost limbs, however, whether or not the practice represents truly sustainable fishing is still a point of scientific inquiry, and the ethics of declawing are also subject to debates over pain in crustaceans.
Alpheus heterochaelis, the bigclaw snapping shrimp, is a snapper or pistol shrimp in the family Alpheidae. It is found in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
Petrolisthes armatus, the green porcelain crab, is a species of small porcelain crab in the family Porcellanidae. It is believed to be native to Brazil but has spread to other parts of the world. Populations in the south eastern part of the United States have increased dramatically and the species is considered to be an invasive species.
Panopeus lacustris, the knot-fingered mud crab, is a true crab belonging to the infraorder Brachyura. It can be distinguished from related species by its exceptionally broad and knobbly main chela (claw).
Grapsus albolineatus is a species of decapod crustacean in the family Grapsidae, native to the Indo-Pacific.
Paguristes puncticeps is a hermit crab, in the family Diogenidae. It is found in shallow waters in the tropical western Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Like other hermit crabs, it lives inside an empty mollusc shell, which it changes periodically as it grows.
