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Crabs are just about the most interesting species in the ocean. With many different families and species, the crabs can be found anywhere in the ocean. They are very cool when they are fighting. They fight for many reasons, such as for food, mates, and space. Some crabs are different. I know you think what are the differences between crabs. Well, there are true crabs, and false crabs. True crabs are hermit crabs and regular crabs, such as blue crabs are false crabs. True crabs have the fifth leg is smaller than all the other legs, while the false crabs don’t have the small leg- it is a regular sized leg. Another cool thing is that blue crabs can regenerate body parts, except their shell. They molt when they are ready to mate, so the shell becomes soft. They can become very big and they are really good to eat. Crabs are scavengers, detritivores in the food chain. They eat dead animals, animal matter, and other dead animals. Crabs run/swim sideways because of the way their legs are facing. If you ever catch a crab that’s pregnant, you shouldn’t take it because they’re trying to increase their populations. We found many crabs here at various places on this island, species such as Grapsus percon, Calcinus laevimanus, Calcinus seurati, are some of the many crabs we’ve found on this island.
In the beginning of this project we barely knew anything about crabs. We didn’t even know how many legs crabs have, that’s how lame we were. After much research, projects, and going out in the intertidal, we studied crabs for the past few months. Now we are somewhat experts on the crabs in Oahu’s intertidal. What many think is that crabs have 8 legs. Well, they actually have 10. 6 are for walking, one side for pushing, the other for pulling, which makes them walk sideways. They have two extra legs at the back made for either swimming if they are swimming crabs, or walking legs if they are land crabs. The last two legs are their claws, used for tearing, clamping, or any other type of defensive or offensive things. There are two types of crabs: swimming crabs or land crabs. The legs tell the differences. If they have swimming legs or walking legs. Crabs eat dead things. They are scavengers of almost anything. They also eat other crabs in competition. Crabs compete for mates by banging and clamping each other with their claws. You can tell the difference between the male and female crabs if you look under the crab. If there is a long skinny shape under it, then it’s a male. Big and short is a female. We also studied hermit crabs. At first, we didn’t know anything about hermit crabs. After several projects and research, we are experts. Hermit crabs are found on or under rocks. Some may be a few inches out of water. They are found in turban, top, and nerite shells. Hermit crabs are scavengers. They fight over mates, food, and shells to live in. The small hermit crabs move very quickly for their size. The hermit crabs are active at night. To get a hermit crab out of its shell you can heat the shell. Don’t heat it too high because you could kill it. But don’t keep the hermit crab out of its shell too long, because it may die. The common hermit crabs were found under rocks and under water.
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