| Callinectes sapidus | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Crustacea |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Infraorder: | Brachyura |
| Family: | Portunidae |
| Genus: | Callinectes |
| Species: | C. sapidus |
| Binomial name | |
| Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896 |
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| Synonyms [1] | |
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Callinectes sapidus (from the Greek calli- = "beautiful", nectes = "swimmer", and Latin sapidus = "savory"), the Chesapeake or Atlantic blue crab, is a crustacean found in the waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific coast of Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. On the Pacific coast of Central America it is largely ignored as a food source as picking the meat is considered too difficult. It is the Maryland state crustacean and the subject of an extensive fishery.[2]
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The blue crab is native to the western edge of the Atlantic Ocean from Nova Scotia to Argentina and around the entire coast of the Gulf of Mexico.[3][4] It has been introduced (via ballast water) to Japanese and European waters, and has been observed in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea.[5]
The natural predators of the blue crab include eels, drum, striped bass, spot, trout, some sharks, humans, and cownose sting rays. The blue crab is an omnivore, eating both plants and animals. Blue crabs typically consume thin-shelled bivalves, annelids, small fish, plants and nearly any other item they can find, including carrion, other blue crabs and human waste.[6]
Blue crabs may be able to control populations of the invasive green crab, Carcinus maenas; numbers of the two species are negatively correlated, and C. maenas is not found in the Chesapeake Bay, where blue crabs are most frequent.[7]
The blue crab may grow to a carapace width of 230 mm (9.1 in). It can be distinguished from a related species that occurs in the same area by the number of frontal teeth on the carapace; C. sapidus has four, while C. ornatus has six.[8]
Male and female blue crabs can be distinguished by their abdomens, which are long and slender in males, but wide and rounded in mature females. A female's abdomen changes as it matures: an immature female has a triangular shaped abdomen, whereas a mature female's is rounded.[9]
The blue hue stems from a number of pigments in the shell, including alpha-crustacyanin, which interacts with a red pigment, astaxanthin, to form a greenish-blue coloration. When the crab is cooked, the alpha-crustacyanin breaks down, leaving only the astaxanthin, which turns the crab red-orange.[10]
Chesapeake Bay blue crabs undergo a seasonal migration; after mating, the female crab travels to the southern portion of the Chesapeake, fertilizing her eggs with sperm stored from her only mating months or almost a year before.[11] In November or December, the female crab releases her eggs. The crabs hatch in a larval form and float in the mouth of the bay for four to five weeks, then the juvenile crabs make their way back into the bay.[11]
The Chesapeake Bay, located in Maryland and Virginia, is famous for its blue crabs, and they are one of the most important economic items harvested from it. In 1993, the combined harvest of the blue crabs was valued at around US$100 million. Over the years the population of the blue crab has dropped,[12] and the amount captured has fallen from over 125,000 t (280,000,000 lb) in 1993 to 81,000 t (180,000,000 lb) in 2008.[1] In the Chesapeake Bay, the population fell from 900 million to around 300 million, and capture fell from 52,000 t (110,000,000 lb) in the mid 1990s to 28,000 t (62,000,000 lb) in 2004, with revenue falling from $72 million to $61 million.[13]
Because of their commercial and environmental value, blue crabs are the subject of management plans over much of their range.[4][14]
| External identifiers for Callinectes sapidus | |
|---|---|
| EOL | 312939 |
| ITIS | 98696 |
| NCBI | 6763 |
| WoRMS | 107379 |
| Also found in: [//species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Callinectes_sapidus Wikispecies] | |