Blue Crab Report (I forgot to post this two years ago)

The blue crab (also known as Callinectes Sapidus) can be found off the coast of east USA and in the Gulf of Mexico. They especially love to be in estuaries. You can tell a male from a female from their under side. If their underside is round it is a female. If it if pointed and shaped like the capital building it is a male (also called a Jimmy). You can also tell the difference by their claws. If the end of their claws are red its a female. If the end of their claws are the same color of the rest of their body it's a male. Blue crabs start out as eggs. A female blue crab can lay up to two million eggs. Usually only one out of a million eggs survive. After the eggs hatch they become Zoeo. When they grow a little bit more they become Megalopa. Next they turn into juvenile crabs. And finally they turn into adult crabs. Blue crabs are mainly commercially raised in NC, VA, MD, and LA. Blue crabs are caught throughout the year. Females can only mate once in their life. Males can mate multiple times. They can only mate right after they molt. The water has to be at just the right temperature for them to molt (the water has to be warm). Blue crabs can go in salt, brackish, and fresh water. Resent tests prove that blue crabs can survive in fresh water ponds. After crabs molt they use water to harden their shells. It takes two to four days for their shell's to completely harden. Crab pots are bated with chicken parts or dead oily fish. Blue crabs can be highly cannibalistic. Hard crabs are graded by size and then sold. Soft shell crabs are usually sold live to restaurants. Sometimes they are dressed and frozen. Soft shell crabs do not have any size limit. In fact the smaller the crab the better they taste. Usually there are only 2 months of prime soft shell shedding per year. You can tell when a crab is going to molt by a color on its swimmer fins. If they are green then it will molt in fourteen to fifty days. If they are white then it will molt in seven to fourteen days. Blue crabs sometimes get the disease Pepper Spots. Its when a flatworm infests a crab and then the flatworm itself itself gets infested by a parasitic protozoan. The protozoan consumes the flatworm and spores appear as pepper spots on the crab meat. It does not affect humans. There are several other diseases blue crabs can get but none of them affect humans.