Alyssa's little crabby

Crabs are one of the animals that Alyssa enjoys photographing and observing. I mean the sea crabs, because the river crabs know less.

When we started to go to the top and discovered the jetty, where it is relatively easy to capture them, she went crazy with joy.
I wanted to go at all hours but especially at night, when it is easier to catch them.
Good easy for Kevin who became a true specialist, because the crabs are very clever and know how to hide right away and in the places where it is more difficult to find them.

At the slightest suspicion of danger, they hide in cracks in the rock or else they throw themselves in the water and there it is impossible to capture them. But Kevin manages to catch them first by hand, by approaching very slowly where is the crab to try to surprise him with a quick movement. And then it is made with a net at the end of a stick with which it is easier to capture it after which it deposits them in a cube with sea water.

Once they have their greatest pleasure is to remove them from the ice cube, let them run through a solitary little square and take them back, with their hands or with the net. And so on and on until I tell them that it's okay and that the poor crab also has the right to rest. Then we take them in the ice cube to the edge of the pier where we let them go and they go running so happy to the water. They should think: "Ugh, we got rid of good!"

These sea crabs are of the Carcinus maenas species that are the most common. Anyway, they have a somewhat curious way of life, now I will tell you.

They live both on the coasts and in the bottom, yes, close to the coast, walking sideways with their eight legs and hunting little fish with the two claws, those that you have to avoid when picking them up because they can give you a good pinch.

They have a lot of strength in them and use them to fight against each other. Sometimes, in those battles, they can lose some, but they can recover it in the next move, although it will never be as big or as strong as the previous one.

Because the crabs "move", but not of the shirt, but of the shell. They are "armored" animals that, in order to grow, what they do is to develop a softer shell underneath and when they grow outside, the shell becomes detached and the new one becomes harder and becomes its new shell. These are some days of maximum danger for the crab since it does not have its protection and can be eaten by birds or other animals that normally could not devour it for its external hardness.

They breathe through gills and although they may be out of water for a long time they need it to live.
They have two very curious eyes because they are on separate filaments and they are like two black and mobile "balls".

They eat mostly dead animals, mostly fish, but they can also catch them with their claws with which they defend themselves and attack the other crabs.
They have a great smell and so they can know right away where there is some food, almost always in the water that is where they usually are. They also eat many molluscs with two shells, the so-called "bivalves", such as clams, mussels or clams, even being able to open them with the force of their claws.

At the same time they have deadly enemies that are the octopus for which the crabs are a true delicacy. When they are small and, above all, when they are molting and have a soft shell, they can be eaten by fish, by other larger crabs or by sea otters, which they also like a lot.
The bad thing is that in Spain there are not too many left.
Their biggest enemy is us, humans, who catch them by means of gadgets called "pots" that are like cages in which a bait is placed (a dead fish, for example) and the crabs that enter can not leave.

The female of the sea crab, after being fertilized by the male, puts many eggs that it carries under its body thanks to a sticky substance that unites them, until the larvae that are very small are born. Months later and after floating in the sea, the larvae go down to the bottom and turn into little crabs. You can see them in summer on the rocks of any beach.


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