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!

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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.

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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!"

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"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.

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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."

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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 _________"

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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)

Mysteries of the (Long Island) Deep

My friend and fellow Southampton College alum, John Carrol, found this dead, partially eaten snail during one of his dives off Long Island:

What happened here?? He answers the mystery at his blog, Chronicles of Zostera, but I’ll give you a hint: it may have something to do with an arms race of sorts (read more about that here, here, or here).

Time it took for four crab species to break into and eat Littorina sitkana snails, grouped by snail size. The numbers above each bar represent prey biomass (mg) over total handling time (minutes) - this measure represents "prey profitability", like how much bang the crabs got for their buck. Crab claw morphology is pictured below each species name. Scale bar is 10 mm.

Adapted from Yamada and Boulding (1998)