Post #14598

Frog Crab: Chimera of the Ocean. Creature between cancer and crab Yes, yes, that’s exactly it, all the oddities in the appearance of the frog crab - except, perhaps, the color of its shell - are explained by the fact that the arthropod smoothly rolls into a completely different group of crustaceans. And, apparently, quite successfully! See for yourself: a normal crab looks like a shell on legs, the width of which is either equal to or greater than its length. It is round or oval, in short. But cancer is structured fundamentally differently. Its cephalothorax is very elongated in length, and there is also an abdomen, often very massive. Now that you've read the paragraph above, take another look at the frog crab's body structure. He's stuck somewhere in the middle! His cephalothorax has already greatly elongated in length, but his abdomen clearly cannot keep up with it - it is still very small. However, the consequences of such a restructuring have already affected the crab’s lifestyle: it has forgotten how to walk sideways. Either forward or backward, as it should be for cancer. However, the frog crab usually does not crawl along the bottom of tropical seas, but sits in the sand, buried up to its eyes. Thanks to the layer of sand, it becomes almost invisible to passing fish, which the arthropod easily grabs with its crab claws. Why crab fish? But because they, too, are stuck between two extremes. Crabs are accustomed to relying on short but very wide claws. These may not be very convenient for eating or catching small things, but it is nice to tear off pieces of flesh from carrion or prey, fight with each other and hold all sorts of cool things. For example, a knife. Crayfish claws are more like tweezers. They are longer and thinner, which makes it easier to catch prey by twisting and ensures better disassembly of carcasses. But at the same time, such claws are weaker and are no longer so convenient in fights or when catching large prey. But frog crayfish have claws that are both wide and thin, which allows them to cope equally well with both large and small prey. But with such shovels it is very convenient to shovel sand onto yourself, hiding the bright red shell under a camouflage mound. And the most important thing: the ability of red crabs to camouflage and catch prey is multiplied by excellent fertility - the female lays up to 200 thousand eggs per year. Therefore, the half-crab, half-crab is an amazingly successful creature that has adapted to life in almost all coastal regions of the tropical regions of the World Ocean. They are excellent at obtaining food, multiply quickly and, most importantly for humans, have a very good taste. Every year we catch tens of thousands of tons of frog crabs, and researchers still see no signs of overfishing. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot