On your marks, get set, Tanner crab fish!

A Tanner crab (Chionoecetes bairdi) fishery is opening tomorrow off of Kodiak. Where, you might ask? Right here:

beautiful Kiliuda Bay

But wait, what's all that racket going on in Kiliuda Bay, home of the upcoming Tanner crab fishery?

Oh, this old thing?

That's right. Sitting in Kiliuda Bay is the Kulluk, Shell's oil rig that had run aground off Kodiak January 1st. The Kulluk is using Kiliuda Bay as safe harbor, but as such, any boats that will be participating in tomorrow's fishery will need to get special permission from the Coast Guard to do the same if the fishermen want to sleep in the bay. As for the fishery itself, the Kulluk should be out of the way as it is anchored in a nursery area for juvenile Tanner crabs and is therefore closed to the fishery.

Kiliuda Bay is enlarged showing the grey area closed to fishing

As long as the Kulluk stays "intact and upright" it shouldn't pose a threat to the crabs. And we can totally trust that nothing like that would happen, right? I mean, it was built in 1982 (and is older than me) but survived a season in the Arctic and didn't spill any oil during the grounding, so...

(waves crashing over the Kulluk when it was first grounded)

Sorry, all that craziness aside, the Tanner crab fishery is opening and you can place orders for pick up in Kodiak, Homer, or Anchorage! The Bering Sea Tanner fishery is closed for 2013 so this Kodiak fishery is a great opportunity for Alaskans (or at least those not privy to Southeast Tanners) to get some fresh C. bairdi meat and support local fishermen.

 a good Kodiak catch

Are you involved in the Tanner crab fishery or from Kodiak? Let me know how the fishery goes and what, if anything, you had to change to accommodate the Kulluk!

nerd

What did you do during your lunch break today? I found the one ring that rules us all, hid it the only place befitting such a ring, and wrote a clue for the owner of the ring in Elvish:

If you can't read Elvish (or my attempt at it), it says:

"The one ring is safe in the

clutches of an immortalized

denizen of the deep

~MZ"

Obviously, the only "denizen of the deep" deserving of such an honor is this bronze beauty (remember meeting him here?):

 "My precious!!!!"

(Props to Pat Barry for figuring out the message!)

Happy New Year!

How has everyone's first week in 2013 been? Did you bring in the New Year with a bang or with quiet reflection on the past year? I have a feeling I know what this guy did:

someone went a little overboard with the silly string

To be fair, the hermit crab here, Pagurus prideauxi, wasn't the party animal here. Those pink strings were secreted from the cloak anemone (Adamsia carciniopados). While they seem fun and festive, the strings are actually poisonous tentacles to protect both the hermit crab and its symbiotic friend!

the anemone protecting its hermit crab pal while he courts a little lady

(photo by Dive Tramp Darryl Mayer)

I always love seeing symbiotic relationships with hermit crabs and anemones. It seems like such a wonderful way for an anemone to get around! The cloak anemone really has it figured out though: while hermit crabs normally have to find larger shells to fit into, and thus have to ditch their old small shells despite any friends they might have picked up, the cloak anemone becomes a sort of protective shell itself for the hermit crab. It does this by creating a chitinous layer called a carcinoecium which helps extend the original shell's coverage!

a sad crabless anemone found on a Scottish beach - note the structure of

the carcinoecium that used to protect a hermit crab's face

Because the cloak anemone adds to the hermit crab's home, the hermit crab never has to worry about finding a bigger shell. That means these crab-anemone pairs are set for life! They're like the Pooh Bear and Piglet of the marine world!

"Silly ol' crab!" - cloak anemone

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!