Blue crabs generally live for 3 or 4 years. They reach maturity in 12 to 18 months. Growth rates are affected by water temperature—they grow more quickly in warmer water. In the Gulf of Mexico, crabs may reach maturity within a year.

Blue crabs are opportunistic omnivores. They will eat nearly anything they can find, including bivalves, dead fish, plant and animal detritus, and even other crabs!

a one in a billion

An old wives’ tale says crab lungs are toxic, but they’re actually just not digestible and taste terrible. Now scrape out the gooey stuff in the center of the crab’s body’s two equal solid parts. The greenish stuff is the liver, called the tomalley. You can eat it and many love this part of the crab.

Willard van Engel, crab experts at VIMS, say it’s the largest blue crab they’ve ever seen or heard about, and may set a Chesapeake Bay and Virginia record. McKinney caught the crab on the Virginia side of the Potomac. It weighed 1.1 pounds and had a 10.72-inch-wide shell.

They have an elongated fan shaped body of red color, with striking mosaic patterns with large white spots, which gives it its particular common name. They also have black tips in their pincers that distinguish them among the poisonous crabs.

Xanthidae is a family of crabs known as gorilla crabs, mud crabs, pebble crabs or rubble crabs. Xanthid crabs are often brightly coloured and are highly poisonous, containing toxins which are not destroyed by cooking and for which no antidote is known.

The coconut crab is no ordinary crustacean. Its main asset, aside from its disturbing appearance, is its immense strength. Despite weighing no more than nine pounds, it can carry up to six times its own bodyweight. Coconut crabs rarely attack humans.

The parts of a crab that are inedible include the shell, lungs and stomach. Depending on the species of crab, the claws or innards may also be inedible. Stone crab and Alaska king crab are two examples of crab species that have few edible parts.

Potential Risks of Crab Crab may be lower in mercury than many other kinds of seafood, but it can still be a concern depending on how it is caught and prepared. Brown crab meat can also have high levels of cadmium, which is toxic if you take in too much.

Pufferfish

Shellfish. Shellfish such as oysters, mussels, crab, lobster, and clams contain large amounts of cholesterol, particularly in relation to their serving size.

Did You Know?

• King crabs, including blue king crabs are also called stone crabs.
• King crabs are not true crabs like Dungeness or snow crab, but are more closely related to hermit crabs.
• Blue king crabs are the rarest of all the king crab species in Alaska.

Alaskan King Crab caught by the US fleet are artificially expensive due to low quotas imposed as much to keep the price inflated as to protect against overfishing. A single snow crab sold for $46,000 (or 5 million yen) at an auction in Tottori, Japan, CNN reports. …

Blue crab