Blue Crabs, an Appetite for Destruction!

Known for their rambunctious, wily behavior, blue crabs still get the distinction, “Beautiful Savory Swimmer.” The males’ blue and females’ red colored claws make for quite a display as they swim agilely through the waterways with their 8 legs and 2 paddle “flippers.” Their importance in the seafood deli case outmaneuvers their prowess in the water, however. Jumbo, lump and claw meat for recipes from crab egg benedict to crispy crab cakes move this delicacy to the forefront of any menu. Their appetite for clams, oysters, mussels, small fish, worms, aquatic plants, and floating nutrients transforms their meat into a taste of choice.

Resourceful and focused on survival, their mere presence in the Chesapeake Bay forecasts their eventual end: a festive crab feast with swinging mallets! With all their popularity, they surely know how to get around. With man’s help, they now populate areas of the Mediterranean, Black and North Seas. From Nova Scotia to Argentina and into the Gulf of Mexico, they search for nourishment and multiply quickly. Within these waters, the male crabs or “jimmies” search out fresher water for more nourishment and less competition, while females or “sooks” swim out toward the ocean for saltier water, better for spawning eggs. Incredibly, scientists tagged female crabs and charted some swimming upwards of 150 miles for more salinity waterways.

The sexes do cojoin in similar habitats of seagrass, oyster reefs, and marsh fringes to hide from predators and to give a hiding place for the young to grow into mature crabs. In fact, they resemble a “family” as the male crab cradles and holds the female crab as she sheds her last shell before reproducing the egg sac. In this vulnerable state with a soft shell, the male protects her from predators as she grows her hard shell back and prepares for her swim to saltier waters. All this appetite of the blue crab for survival only increases man’s crab pots and charting of these blue crab movements. The final destination, not the mouth of the bay, nor the tributaries of Severn River, but the wooden tables at your local crab spot. Carefully destruct the blue crabs armored shells and get to their salty-sweet meat!