Blue Crab

Beschrijving

Blue crabs are commercially harvested with baited traps along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in bays, sounds, channels and river mouths. The bulk of the harvest comes from Wakulla, Citrus and Duval counties. Blue crab is one of the top 10 seafood products in dockside value and ranks in the top five in terms of pounds harvested.

The blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) has a dark green or olive green hard shell and five pairs of bright blue legs. The undersides of the body and legs are white. Only the first pair of legs is equipped with pincers or claws. Male and female claws are various shades of blue on the top, but the tips of the female’s claws are bright red.

Blue crab is harvested and eaten in two stages of its life cycle, when the exoskeleton is hard and also when it’s soft. The soft-shell blue crab is a hard-shell crab that has shed its shell by molting. “Peeler” crabs (crabs in the process of molting) are held in water-filled tanks and watched closely until they form their soft shells and shed their hard ones. Then they are plucked out of the tanks and rushed to market. Soft-shell crabs are considered a delicacy and can be eaten shell and all.