Crabs

What are they?

When a person goes to the beach, there's always a picnic. But if you watch carefully, there are more than eager swimmers ( Yeah right! There are seaweed too ). There are the inhabitants of the beach - the shore as well as the water - crabs. They come under the class crustaceans that are under arthropods.

Characteristics

They have a hard shell and joined legs. They live from the shallow regions to the deep waters. There are more than 4,200 species of crabs. Some are eaten as food ( by humans too, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it).

They make burrows into the soil. They may go several kilometres into the land. Some live among the coral reefs, that by nature offer protection to a wide range of the marine animals. The smallest of the crabs are pea crabs. They are sheltered by the shells of live oysters . Our friend, the famous hermit crab is protected by the empty shells of other animals. The colour, speed, shapes, sizes, pincers and the shells vary a lot.

Some are born swimmers ( but this doesn't mean that the others detest water ), with paddles on the last pair of legs. Crabs eat smaller crustaceans and other matter ( eatable matter - eatable for a crab, that is ). Crabs that are tasty ( or atleast eatable ) have large shells with certain patterns. The kind of crab sold varies from place to place.