A look back at 2012

It's New Year's Eve and, with 2013 bearing down on us, I thought it would be fun to look back at the top 10 posts from 2012!

10. I got a fever...

I'm really glad to revisit this post. I mean, who doesn't love a Christopher Walken reference, am I right? Plus the opportunity to learn a little bit more about chitin, which makes up the second most abundant biomass on Earth, was too good to pass up.

9. Aging crabs

a snow crab brain!

I'd like to think that this post was so popular because of the awesome snow crab brain picture, but I'm pretty sure it got a lot of hits from my proud parents since it was the first post after my successful defense. Thanks Mom and Dad!

8. Boo!

I learned about the not-so-small ghost fishing problem we have here in Alaska at the Marine Science Symposium and shared the info with you. You guys must have been impressed by either (A) the number of derelict pots estimated out in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea or (B) my Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon.

 ghost fishing! (yuck-yuck-yuck)

7. O is for opilio

I'm not surprised this post was up there: learning the difference between my dear sweet snow crabs Chionoecetes opilio and the red-eyed Tanner crabs Chionoecetes bairdi is probably the most important thing you'll learn all year. Or ever.

6. Waiter, there's a crab in my bivalve: part 2

a pea crab

Do you know what's more fun than finding a mussel in your mussel shell? Finding a pea crab in your mussel shell! I haven't found one yet, but I'm not giving up hope. (This post was "part 2" because I was drawn to the pea crab phenomenon by looking up recipes of mussels or clams stuffed with crab meat, which in itself was inspired by the shellback crab. My mind: it's a strange, happy, crabby place!)

5. 4 for the price of 1!

Insulamon palawanense aka the most beautiful crab!

New species are always exciting to find, especially when we start thinking we know everything about this planet. So four species blew my mind, and yours, apparently. (I also liked the picture of I. porculum, but that's because I'm a ham. Haha!)

4. Bah-Ram-Ewe

Does anyone else love animals with common names referring to other animals? Because I sure do, and the sheep crab is no exception!

a sheep crab with a sea hare

3. Why is this turtle so unhappy?

If you haven't read this post, do yourself a favor and click the link. This poor turtle's story is... just ridiculous.

2. How to prepare and cook Dungeness crab

This post is pretty self-explanatory and was inspired by an Alaska Marine Science Symposium talk on paralytic shellfish poisoning (and Gordon Ramsay, in a roundabout way). I eat a lot of Dungies so I wanted to both learn more about PSP and share the information with you.

1. What's ocean acidification?

Look at you, nerds! The top post from 2012 was a chemistry lesson on ocean acidification! I've never been so proud of my readership as I am at this moment!

my cartoon on carbon dioxide uptake and how that affects the ocean's chemistry

Thank you for reading Snow Crab Love and

have a Happy New Year!

a sweet victory for bitter crabs

I recently visited family in Illinois and, while flying there, talked with a fellow passenger about bitter crab disease and the prevalence of it in southeast Alaskan Tanner crabs (Chionoecetes bairdi). In one area, the parasitic dinoflagellate affected 95% of the crabs, and that was back in 1987! Lately some southeast Alaskan populations had 100% of their primiparous females infected (Sherry Tamone talked about that at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in 2011). Bitter crab is a problem in Alaska, but it is also affecting fisheries off Virginia and along the eastern coastal US, as well as in crab hatcheries in China and lobster populations in Scotland! What is causing this, and how is it spreading? What can fishermen do to quell the infection rate? And how can processors assist the fishermen in this effort?

 an infected Tanner crab (top) with milky hemolymph

and a healthy Tanner (bottom) with translucent hemolymph

Lots of questions, I know. Scientists have been feverishly researching Hematodinium sp, the dinoflagellate that is wreaking havoc on commercial crab species. A group of crab scientists at VIMS were able to trace the life history of Hematodinium sp. "[W]e can now really start picking the life cycle apart to learn what the organism does and how it functions," said Jeff Shields.

(Jeff Shields, VIMS)

The researchers noticed a pattern of development time in the dinoflagellate that correlates with cycles of infection in the field and molting of blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus). This knowledge enables them to make suggestions, at least in the realm of aquaculture, on how to avoid the spread of bitter crab by minimizing any effects the parasite could have on crabs during certain periods of both host and parasite life cycles. It seems small, but it's an important victory 15 years in the making in the battle against bitter crab disease!

And the winner is:

RHYS SNOW CRAB SMOKER!!!!

Oh man, this mug give-away was pretty entertaining! I posted the give-away here, on the Snow Crab Love Facebook page, and my own personal one. The most-delicious award for what they would put in the mug goes to Alaska.Jelly.Bean: cocoa and Bailey's! But my mom and sister tried to bribe me for mugs (just shameful, ladies), then there was this wackiness on my home page:

You may not have caught all of that, but this was my favorite addition:

a portrait of Jon Richar, put together by Rhys S. C. Smoker

Needless to say, Rhys won the mug based on sheer number of comments! Well done, sir. Well done. I entered everyone's names into an Excel spreadsheet from all locations, then uploaded it into R. Here's how that panned out:

Truth be told, I ran this a few more times (about 10 or so...) and it took 6 times before a different name popped up. So Rhys, you really earned it!

"I am a champion!" - ^ this cat ^ (and Rhys)

I'll be back later this week with more crab trivia. Congratulations and thanks again to everyone who entered!

'Tis the Season!

With Thanksgiving behind us and all the winter holidays in front of us, I am in a very thankful and giving mood. I'm thankful for all the Snow Crab Love followers, both here and on Facebook. I'm pretty impressed that this little crab blog has had over 87,000 page views from all over the world!

To say "Thanks" and "Happy Holidays", I'm giving away a Snow Crab Love mug! That's right, this bad boy could be yours:

You may have seen the mugs before being held by me:

and my advisor:

chillin' on Raphaelle Descouteaux's desk:

or with Captain Picard (from here):

Would you like your own? Here's the deal:

1. Comment on this post! Let me know what you'd put in your mug. Coffee? Tea? Wine? (No, I've never done that with my own mug...) Or would you go a little less traditional: pens and pencils? Buttons? Crab exoskeletons or eyestalks? (I'm looking at you, Sherry.)
2. Your name will be entered into a spreadsheet for each comment, either here or on Facebook. You have to be a follower or have 'liked' Snow Crab Love in order to be entered. The winner will be randomly selected from that list. I'm planning on using R for that because I'm a huge nerd.
3. Giveaway closes: Sunday December 9th at midnight Alaskan time
4. Prize ships: Anywhere! That being said, please be patient if you live outside the U.S. Shipping from Juneau is a slow process even to get to the lower 48, much less internationally.

 Good Luck and Happy Holidays!

These mugs were paid for by North Pacific Research Board (funding awarded to Sherry Tamone) as part of the community outreach I've done with the blog to help spread the word about snow crabs and crab love. Thank you, NPRB!

The mystery crab is a...

FIDDLER CRAB!

sand fiddler crab, Uca pugilator

Did you guess that? In the last post with my story about a little lost crab, I gave a few clues as to what type of crab he was:

1. When he first woke up, he saw some characters from the nursery rhyme "Hey, diddle, diddle" by Mother Goose: a cat, a fiddle with our fiddler crab, a cow jumping over the moon, a dish running away with a spoon.

2. Tevye is the main character from "Fiddler on the Roof",  and I couldn't pass up an opportunity to reference that musical! Even National Geographic played with the connection, so I know I'm not alone. The title of the musical is referenced when Tevye says, "Traditions, traditions. Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as... as... as a fiddler on the roof!" That's why Farmer Tevye in my little story warns the crab to be careful up there.

I LOVE this musical!!!

(Next up was the chicken on the roof. He had no secret meaning. I just thought a conversation with a chicken would be funny.)

3. Having the crab go to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta gave me a place to focus my fiddler crab species search, and it also gave me an awesome opportunity to have the Charlie Daniels Band's "Devil went down to Georgia" stuck in my head for a good week! While I'm not generally a fan of his, that song is a classic that can't be ignored. If you've never heard it, it's about the Devil trying to get the soul of a boy named Johnny by challenging him to a fiddle duel. Johnny wins. Boom.

4. Finally, going to the coast led to actual biological clues to the crab's identity: seeing little holes in the sand surrounded by balls (sand from the fiddler crab excavations), feeling cooler after waving, and having one large claw and one small claw all pointed to the fiddler crab!

a flock of fiddler crabs

Georgia salt marshes have three fiddler crab species: Uca pugnax, U. pugilator, and U. minax. I was pretty smitten with the splash of purple on the carapaces of U. pugilator, and I even included a little purple on the fiddler crab stranger that waved to our crab, so that's the final species I chose (in case anyone got really nerdy and wanted to know the scientific name).

pretty in purple

Side note: the two pictures from Americana the Beautiful are from a blog entry beginning with, "A stroll along Cumberland Island...". Pfft. I "strolled" along Cumberland Island for 20-some-odd miles after having spent almost 2 months sailing on a schooner (i.e. not walking a lot), and it. was. awful. We saw wild horses and dolphins, but still. My legs were shaking by the time I got back into my bunk. And I might have cried after the sun set and we were still on the beach and had no idea how far away our ship was.

Other side note: the title of the last post, "Who am I" made me think of Jean Valjean from Les Miserables. Anyone else?

Who am I?

Come on an adventure with me and my mystery crab! Bring the kiddos!

-- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * --

A crab woke up late one night with a bump on his noggin and that strange sensation of not knowing where - or who - he was. As his vision cleared, he thought he saw a cow jumping over the moon, but he told himself it must have been the dwindling remnants of a dream. Soon a cat approached him.

"Are you OK? You look a little lost," said the cat.

"I feel a little lost. Can you tell me where I am? Or, better yet, who I am?" replied the crab.

"Well, I don't know who you are, but this is Farmer Tevye's place," said the cat as he swept his tail around to show the breadth of the farmland. "Why don't you go talk to him. He may know who you are."

"Thanks" said the crab, and he was on his way.

-- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * --

The crab walked towards a large red barn and found Farmer Tevye singing and picking up what seemed to be loose dishware.

"Excuse me, sir, but do you know who I am?"

"I'm sorry little fellow, but I haven't seen the likes of you around these parts before," answered Farmer Tevye. "Traditionally, if I'm trying to remember something, I head up to the roof for perspective. I don't know why, but something tells me you belong up there."

"Oh, OK, thank you," said the crab, a little warily.

"Be careful now," shouted Farmer Tevye after him, "it can be a bit shaky up there!"

-- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * --

"Hmmph. Oomph." The crab climbed up to the tippy top of the barn roof.

"Bagawk!" said a resident chicken.

"Hello, can you tell me who I am?" asked the crab.

"Bock!" replied the chicken.

"My name is Bock?" asked the crab, unsure how he felt about being called 'Bock'.

"Bock, bock, bagawk!" answered the chicken.

"I see," said the rather discouraged crab. He looked out across the farmland to the dark horizon and there, in the distance, was the bright orange glow of a big city. And in the middle of the bright orange glow was a big fish-like 'G' emanating from the center of the city. What could it be? The little crab didn't know, but he took it as both a figurative and literal sign and decided he would go and find out! First things first though: he needed to climb back down.

-- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * --

The little crab journeyed across the fields, up and over hills, to a magical city called 'Atlanta'. When he arrived he asked passersby if they new the significance of fish-shaped letters. One friendly gal said, "Oh yes! The Georgia Aquarium has a finned 'G' for their logo!"

The little crab was so excited! "If I'm going to find out who I am, surely it will be at an aquarium!" So to the aquarium he scurried.

As the little crab approached the entrance to the aquarium, he saw a sign that read,

"SPECIAL EXHIBIT:
CRABS FROM
THE GEORGIA
COAST FEATURING..."

... but then the Devil appeared just as the little crab was getting to the featured creature!

"Excuse me, um, sir... you are blocking the sign. Can you step aside so I can read it please?" asked the crab as politely as possible.

"I'll step aside if you challenge me to a duel first. A musical duel, that is," cackled the Devil.

"No thanks," said the crab, confused and a little put off by the devil. But he thought to himself, "If I can't find my answers here, I'll go directly to the Georgia Coast. Someone must know who I am there."

-- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * --

The cool breeze and sandy beach were welcome reprieves from the little crab's hard journey from the farm, through the city, to the sea. As he scurried about happily in this new-found joy of salty air on soft, wet terrain, he spied someone in the distance. Was this someone who could finally answer his question?

The crab waved to the stranger, and instantly felt a bit cooler. "That was odd," he thought to himself. But the stranger waved back!

With a closer look, the crab realized there was something strange about this stranger: he only had one large claw. The other claw was quite small. Immediately the crab regretted waving to this unknown mutant, but the asymmetrical crab was now fast approaching him. Suddenly shy, the crab looked down at his own claws, but what was this? He too had one large claw and one small claw.

"I'm a monster!!!" shouted the distressed little crab.

"No you're not," laughed the not-so-strange stranger. "You're a _________"

-- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * --

Do you know what kind of crab our little friend is? I'll be back later in the week to tell you, but feel free to give a guess if you'd like!

(Story and pictures © Marilyn Zaleski 2012)

High 4!

Do you ever have that awkward moment where you want to high-five someone and they leave you hanging?

^ not this guy ^

Or that embarrassing moment went you say "High five," but the person only has 4 fingers? (That actually happened to me. On a boat in the middle of the Bering Sea. So I had no where to hide in shame. *sigh*)

ANYWAY, this little guy has the opposite problem. You see, crabs like to offer each other a "snap two" with their chelae, but this fellow has THREE CLAWS!

"I had a weird molting experience (probably),

so now I have extra claw-flair."

He can go lefty with no problem, but the minute a person catches him with a drink in his left claw, it's all over. Just imagine it:

"Snap two, bro!" says an unsuspecting crab.

"Um, er, snap four?" replies the embarrassed crab, offering his duo of claw craziness.

 

"Oh, never mind..."

Luckily our mutated little friend is staying at the Seaside Aquarium in Oregon, so at least he doesn't have to compete for food with what may be a difficult claw to maneuver.

 "You try taking a clam apart with this!"

And although the look of his claw is a bit unsettling, he's not the only crab out there to have a strange claw morphology. It can happen if the claw is injured before or during the molting process: crabs can regenerate their lost or damaged limbs, but sometimes the signalling for "build a new claw" goes haywire, and you get something like this:

an edible crab from Northumberland, UK

Nature, you're crazy!

Sweet Crab Treat

My friends Rachael and Chris gave me a sweet crab-shaped cookie cutter for my birthday!

They must have known that I've been coveting a crustacean cookie cutter for quite some time, and I didn't waste any using my new toy making:

Shortbread Crabs

I used a recipe from Claire Robinson, host of 5 Ingredient Fix on the Food Network, because if there's one thing I like, it's easy recipes. And snow crabs. But 'easy recipes' is up there. The best part of this recipe is you don't actually need a cookie cutter, but if you have a crab-shaped one it makes it that much more fun.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon water

everything you'll need for the cookies and the decorations

Directions:
1. Add the flour, salt, and powdered sugar to a food processor and pulse to combine. Add in the vanilla, the butter and the 1 teaspoon of water. Pulse together just until a dough is formed. Put the dough on a sheet of plastic wrap and roll into a log, about 2 1/2 inches in diameter and 5 inches long. Tightly twist each end of the wrap in opposite directions. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

I didn't have plastic wrap, so I rolled the dough in a plastic baggie

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. (The original instructions called for this step at the very beginning, but who needs their oven preheating for 30 minutes or more while they mix and cool their dough?)

3. If you don't have a cookie cutter, you can cut the log of dough into 1/3-inch medallions and bake them as sweet little circles on your sheet. Otherwise, roll out the dough on a clean, dry, floured surface to about 1/3-inch thickness. Bring on the cookie cutter joy, placing your crabs on a nonstick cookie sheet or a buttered baking sheet, and re-rolling the leftover dough to make more crab cookies.

I don't have a rolling pin, but a glass does just fine

my salt and pepper shakers oversaw the cutter placement

4. Bake until the edges are just light brown, about 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on the cookie sheets for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks and cool until room temperature.

golden goodness on those chelae and dactyls

 5. The fun part: decorate your cookies! I used frosting for half and left the other half plain because my husband doesn't like frosted cookies (I know, who did I marry?!?!). The plain guys got eyes before they were baked, but the frosted guys got eyes after they were all done up in cream cheesy goodness. Notice the eyes are green because they're opilios. I used mint M&Ms and they were a hit!

frosted or not, these cookies were tasty!

This made me think of the article I had read and mentioned in my last post: would a plain crab cookie taste better than one with epibionts extra toppings? I made one to find out:

see the barnacles (frosting dots) and

leech egg cases (pumpkin seeds) on the old-shell crab? 

the verdict: he was delicious!

(you can also see my sweet goldfish

in the background, mentioned here)

Are old shells really that bad?

I mentioned last month that the Bering Sea snow crab fishery's quota had been reduced by about 25%, and I explained that the reduction was probably in part due to the decrease in mature male biomass that was seen during the 2012 summer trawl survey:

mature male biomass estimates in tons from the NMFS summer trawl surveys:
the fishery was declared rebuilt last year, but you can see the decrease
in males with a carapace width ≥ 95 mm from 2011 to 2012

The cut in quota wasn't due to that decrease alone; there was also a higher proportion of old-shell males within the survey. Why is this a problem? Old-shell males are not as commercially valuable as new-shell males because of their visual appeal (or lack thereof).

newly molted "new-shell" males on top and
males that have been around the block a few times, aka "old-shell" males

This article is great for explaining the issue of old-shell males in the fishery, plus it has some quotes from our good crab friend, and fishery biologist with ADF&G Kodiak, Doug Pengilly (holla!). I highly recommend you read it (you may have already if you follow Snow Crab Love on facebook) because it also mentions how the decrease in quota may or may not affect the value of the fishery. I bring it up simply because I'm curious what you all think:

Would you buy crabs that may have some barnacles growing on them or some scratches on their bodies that make them appear not-so-shiny? Or are you happy to get 'em clean?

Let me know!

Happy Halloween! Hermit Crab!

Happy Halloween!

And Happy Halloween Crabday!
And Happy Halloween Hermit Crab Crabday!!!

Halloween Hermit Crab

Ciliopagurus strigatus

"Trick or Me! (Because I'm obviously a treat.)"

OK, I'll calm down. You see, Halloween is my favorite holiday by far. I love the costumes, the decorations, the spooky movies, the pumpkin-and-chocolate everything. So you can imagine how thrilling it was for me to find a Halloween crab! And a beautiful crab to boot!

"Even my tush is cute!"

We've already had a Crabday for hermit crabs in general, and a Crabday for the coconut crab (a shell-less hermit crab), but what makes the Halloween hermit crab special (aside from its name) are their orange and black legs. Those bold legs also differentiate the Halloween hermit crab from the other 3 species of hermits within the "Ciliopagurus strigatus complex".

claw coloration in the complex:

(A) Ciliopagurus strigatus, (B) C. tricolor,

(C) C. vakovako, and (D) galzini

What is a "Ciliopagurus strigatus complex?" It is a grouping of 4 species within the genus Ciliopagurus that are all very similar with the exception of their coloration. Normally, they might even be considered different variations of the same species, but they do, in fact, have enough genetic variation from one another to justify the different species names. In the aquarium world, they're still all commonly called Halloween hermit crabs though. Overall, the take away message that I got from this is, "Wow! The Halloween hermit crab has some purdy cousins!"

"Don't I know it!" - Halloween hermit crab

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween (and a relatively dry one for our East Coast readers)!

Complex reading:
Poupin, J., and M. C. Malay. 2009. Identification of a Ciliopagurus strigatus (Herbst, 1804) species-complex, with description of a new species from French Polynesia (Crustacea, Decapoda, Anomura, Diogenidae). Zoosystema 31: 209 - 232.