TRUE CRABS
True brachyuran crabs have powerful chelae which they use to rip fish and even snails apart. To get pinched by one can be a memorable experience. Some swim, while others crawl, creep and sidle. It's best to keep them in separate aquaria or they may eat your prized tank mates.Christmas Island crabs • Jack Rudloe & The Flame Streaked Box Crab • Blue crab
Giant Spider Crabs • Edisto Beach Blue Crab • Arrow Crab in tank
Fiddler Crabs fighting • They got crabs in Malaysia
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Ar-1460 FLAME STREAKED BOX CRAB, Calappa flammea, a large brightly colored burrowing crab that draws water through its gills and is often seen spouting it out of its head like a fountain. It uses its scissors-like claws like a can opener to rip open hermit crabs. Each: 19.00 | |
 | Ar-1470 CALICO CRAB, Hepatus epheliticus, an attractive red and white spotted crab that survives well in the aquarium. It will normally bury completely out of sight in sand or light gravel but when food is placed in the aquarium it erupts dramatically to seize it. To demonstrate their striking respiratory current, place them in a shallow dish with just enough water to cover their legs and they pump a geyser of water several inches high. Size: 3-6 cm. Each: 10.00 |
| Ar-1480 SWIMMING CRAB, Portunus gibbesii, a beautiful iridescent purple and red swimming crab with delicate slender pincers. Very alert, graceful, responsive and compatible with most other forms. Size: 6-8 cm. Each: 10.00 |  |
Ar-1485 SPECKLED SAND CRAB, Arenaeus cribrarius. With its vicious pincers and swimming legs and aggressive temper, it could easily be confused with a blue crab. Burrowing down into the shifting sands, where the waves pound the sandy shore waiting to ambush mole crabs, and coquina clams, its light speckled body gives it perfect camouflage. Sporadically available, sizes range from 2 to 5 inches.
Each: 19.00
 | Ar-1490 BLUE CRAB, Callinectes sapidus, a large, colorful crab that will savagely pinch a finger or tear a fish to shreds. The famous edible crab of the seafood industry, its bad disposition is redeemed by its delicious taste. Maintained in isolation from other specimens, their elaborate feeding behavior can be observed. They meticulously open juvenile oysters by expertly turning them and prying the hinges apart. Sometimes a blue crab can be observed delicately cleaning its own carapace. Blue crabs are used by physiologists to study vision and quick muscular responses. Size 12-14 cm. | ||||||
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Ar-1502 PURSE CRAB, Persephona mediterranea, so called because of its wide rounded apron. This is a peculiar species with a globular carapace, spidery chelipeds and mottled tan colors tinged with red. They survive well in captivity. Size 1-3 cm.
Each: 15.00
Ar-1504 HAIRY CRAB, Pilumnus sayi, a small form usually under 2 inches with black tipped chelipeds. It is found in fouling habitats and is often found commensal with tunicates. Size 2-4 cm.
Each: 13.00
Ar-1505 SQUEAKING CRAB, Ovalipes quadulpensis, a large species that is very useful for demonstrating sound in invertebrates. The crab stridulates when handled. Size 3-8 cm.
Each: 19.00
Ar-1507 FOULING ASSEMBLAGE CRAB, Eurypanopeus depressus, a small brown crab that lives with oysters and hydroids. Size: Up to 2 cm.
Dozen: 19.00
Ar-1510 STONE CRAB, Menippe mercenaria, the largest of the xanthid (mud) crabs. Its two huge grinding claws are used to crush oysters, one claw for crushing and the other claw for delicately picking out the meat. Stone crab claws are an epicurean dish; and fishermen break off the huge claws and throw the crab back to regenerate new ones. It is perhaps the only living creature that you can eat partially while the rest of the animal is running around trying to survive. Lives on rocky bottoms, constructing burrows through limestone. Size: 10-12 cm.
| Each: | 10.00 |
| Summer Price (May 15-Oct 15): | 15.00 |
Ar-1520 BLACK MARSH CRAB, Sesarma cinereum or S. reticulatum, a semi-terrestrial grapsid crab that lives in salt marshes and in drift debris about the high tide mark. Aerates water in branchial cavity externally, forcing it through channels on the side of the carapace. Lives well in damp sand. Size: 2 cm.
Each: 10.00
 | Ar-1530 GHOST CRAB, Ocypode quadrata, available April to October. They dwell in burrows on upper beaches above the high tide line and can run with the swiftness of a racehorse. It is a true amphibious crab, however, and enters the water to wet its gills. Size: 2-6 cm. Minimum order: 3 crabs Each: 15.00 |
| Ar-1540 MARSH FIDDLER CRAB, Uca virens, a handsome fiddler crab with a bluish green carapace front. Males are excellent at aggressive behavioral displays in the aquarium. Formerly classed with several other species as U. pugnax. Size: 2-3 cm. Each: 5.00 |  |
Ar-1550 COMMON FIDDLER CRAB, Uca pugilator and/or Uca panacea, no creature is as preoccupied with sex as fiddler crabs. Males sit at the edge of their burrows, continuously beckoning the females with their vastly larger claw enticing them to join them down below. On a warm day when the tide recedes, the "herd" leaves their holes and parades down to the water's edge by the thousands to eat diatoms. They sound like rustling leaves in a fall wind, when moving through the marsh grass. While they may not replace the white mouse as a laboratory experimental animal, Uca pugilator runs a close second. They are used to study neuro-secretory hormone control of mechanisms regulating light adaptation. Removal of the eye stalks causes chromotophores to contract, and the crab lightens. Injections of extract made of eye stalks into destalked crabs causes darkening.
| Each: | $ 2.00 | |||
| Dozen: | 20.00 | Sexed Dozen: | $ 25.00 | |
| Per 50: | 45.00 | Sexed 50: | 57.50 | |
| Per 100: | 70.00 | Sexed Per 100: | 90.00 | |
| Per 500: | 160.00 | Sexed Per 500: | 200.00 | |
| Not available in Winter | ||||
| Ar-1581 ARROW CRAB, Metoporhaphis calcaratus, or Stenorhynchus seticornis, the spider-like arrow crab which occasionally rises from the bottom and "walks" up and down in the water column, one of the most bizarre forms of behavior to be witnessed in an aquarium. It has a tiny body with a long pointed rostrum and long slender legs. Size: 6 cm. across arm tips. Each: 10.00 |  |
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| Ar-1590 SPIDER CRABS, Libinia emarginata and L. dubia, will tear an attractive orange or blue sponge apart and stick it on their backs as a decorating camouflage. Excellent scavengers and predators. Highly sensitive to salinity changes, used as examples of strict stenohaline osmoconformers in physiology experiments. Females gravid February through May. Size: 6-10 cm. (ea/dz) Each: 10.00 - Dozen: 82.00 | |
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