Post by 777 on Sept 14, 2019 20:10:41 GMT -8
I love crabs and how they look, so I have a growing collection of them. Preserving crabs can be a little time consuming, and I will tell you why. For those of you who are curious, you have to carefully take apart the crab, take as much flesh out as possible, and then gluing the exoskeleton back together. There is someone on youtube who uses either to clean the inside of the crab a little more without changing its color. I'm not interested in using either, so I place my newly assembled crab outside away from sunlight, ants, etc for a period of time to get rid of the smell (removing every minuscule piece of flesh from a crab without either is extremely difficult and time consuming). Unfortunately, the meat of a crab is what makes most of their color show, so taking the meat out removes a lot of the natural color. To counter this, you can paint underneath the exoskeleton with the appropriate colors for species with thin exoskeletons, or just paint externally with ones with thick exoskeletons. Enough talk, here is my small crab collection.
Here is my male gulf sand fiddler (Uca panacea). I found him at Galveston, TX at a salt marsh. They are very quick when they dash into their burrows, so I had to obtain this crab by digging him out with my finger.
Here is my male lined shore crab (Pachygrapsus crassipes). I caught him at a tide pool at Oregon. These guys can be frustrating to pursue because of the large rough boulders that they hide between. The small ones have brilliant black and yellow stripes, while large adults like this one are more dull in color.
Here is my female Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata). I caught her at Freeport, TX. These crabs are nocturnal, and it is much easier to wait for night to come to catch them than to dig their sometimes 4 feet deep burrows during day time! I attempted digging their burrows, but those burrows are DEEP, and a lot of sand can fall in. I got lucky with one burrow and felt crab legs with my fingers while reaching in. I held on to the seemingly small legs and started digging the side with a very small shovel. I kept digging, and eventually the small legs had a surge of power, and a monster of a ghost crab burst out of the sand and pinched my fingers with all its might. The small crab legs I felt minutes before turned out to be massive fuzzy legs, and the pinches from the claws felt like hard squeezing pliers. The sharp "teeth" of the claws didn't help either, and ended up drawing blood. The individual was a male, so he had two large crushing claws, giving me a double whammy. That little event has made me have a newfound respect for their strength. I ended up waiting until night time and had a much easier time finding and catching the crabs with a net. Most of them are small, so finding a large ghost crab like this one is gratifying.
Here is my male gulf sand fiddler (Uca panacea). I found him at Galveston, TX at a salt marsh. They are very quick when they dash into their burrows, so I had to obtain this crab by digging him out with my finger.
Here is my male lined shore crab (Pachygrapsus crassipes). I caught him at a tide pool at Oregon. These guys can be frustrating to pursue because of the large rough boulders that they hide between. The small ones have brilliant black and yellow stripes, while large adults like this one are more dull in color.
Here is my female Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata). I caught her at Freeport, TX. These crabs are nocturnal, and it is much easier to wait for night to come to catch them than to dig their sometimes 4 feet deep burrows during day time! I attempted digging their burrows, but those burrows are DEEP, and a lot of sand can fall in. I got lucky with one burrow and felt crab legs with my fingers while reaching in. I held on to the seemingly small legs and started digging the side with a very small shovel. I kept digging, and eventually the small legs had a surge of power, and a monster of a ghost crab burst out of the sand and pinched my fingers with all its might. The small crab legs I felt minutes before turned out to be massive fuzzy legs, and the pinches from the claws felt like hard squeezing pliers. The sharp "teeth" of the claws didn't help either, and ended up drawing blood. The individual was a male, so he had two large crushing claws, giving me a double whammy. That little event has made me have a newfound respect for their strength. I ended up waiting until night time and had a much easier time finding and catching the crabs with a net. Most of them are small, so finding a large ghost crab like this one is gratifying.
