Cancer pagurus

This is a brown crab.

It has a shell like a pie crust. The shell is reddish-brown. Its claws have black tips.

These crabs hunt at night. They hide in holes during the day. They eat things like mussels.

Female crabs carry many eggs. They keep them under their bodies. The eggs stay there for months. They hatch into tiny babies.

Some crabs can live a long time. They can live for 100 years!

People catch them in pots. Many people like to eat them.

The edible crab is a large crab.

It has a reddish-brown shell. The edge of the shell looks like a pie crust. Its claws have black tips.

These crabs are nocturnal. This means they hunt at night. During the day, they hide in holes or under rocks. They eat many things. They like to eat mussels and other small sea creatures.

Female crabs carry many eggs. They can carry up to 3,000,000 eggs! The female holds the eggs under her body for eight months. When the eggs hatch, the babies are called zoea.

These tiny larvae float in the sea. Soon, they grow into young crabs.

Crabs can live for a very long time. Most live for 25 to 30 years. Some can even live to be 100 years old! People catch these crabs in pots called creels.

They are a very important food in Western Europe. Many people enjoy eating the white meat from their claws.

The edible crab is a very important animal in the ocean.

Many people know it as the brown crab. It has a strong, reddish-brown shell called a carapace. The front edge of this shell looks like a pie crust. This crab lives in the North Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. It can also be found in the Mediterranean Sea. These crabs are very important for people to eat.

This crab has a very interesting way of living and growing. It is a nocturnal predator, which means it hunts at night. During the day, it hides in cracks, holes, or under rocks. At night, it travels up to 100 meters from its hiding spot to find food. It likes to eat molluscs and other crustaceans. The crab might stalk its prey or dig big pits to find buried food.

The life of a crab starts with a very big family. In the winter, mating happens between a male and a female. After this, the female finds a pit on the sea floor. She lays her eggs there and holds them under her body. She can carry between 250,000 and 3,000,000 eggs at one time! She protects them for up to eight months until they hatch.

Scientists have studied these crabs for a long time. A man named Carl Linnaeus first described them in 1758. This was in a famous book called Systema Naturae. Later, Pierre André Latreille named their group, or genus, Cancer in 1810. These crabs are very hardy and can live a long time. Most live for 25 to 30 years. However, some amazing crabs have lived to be 100 years old!

Fishermen catch these crabs using special tools called crab pots or creels.

These pots are placed in the ocean and baited with food. This is a huge job because people catch 60,000 tonnes of them every year. Most of these crabs are caught near Britain and Ireland. When people eat them, they find white meat in the claws and brown meat in the body. It is a very popular food in many parts of Europe.

The edible crab, known scientifically as *Cancer pagurus*, is a robust marine crustacean.

It is most famous for being a major food source in Western Europe. These crabs are characterized by a reddish-brown carapace, which is their hard upper shell. The front edge of this shell has nine rounded lobes that resemble a pie crust. They are also recognized by the black tips on their powerful claws. This species plays a vital role in the marine ecosystems of the North Atlantic and North Sea.

To understand how these crabs live, we must look at their nocturnal habits. During the daylight hours, they hide in cracks, holes, or under rocks. At night, they emerge to hunt for food. They are predators that target various molluscs and crustaceans. For example, they eat blue mussels and several types of smaller crabs. To find food, they might stalk moving prey or dig large pits in the sand to reach buried animals.

The physical structure of the crab is highly specialized for survival. Their first pair of legs is modified into strong chelipeds, which are the claws used for grasping. The tips of these claws, called the dactylus and propodus, are black. Behind their eyes, the crab has complex mouthparts. These include three pairs of maxillipeds, maxillae, maxillules, and mandibles. A fold in the carapace also creates a branchial chamber, which is the space where their gills are located.

The life cycle of *C. pagurus* is a complex process of growth and reproduction. Mating occurs during the winter months. The male protects the female by forming a cage with his legs while she moults, or sheds her old shell. After internal fertilization, the female retreats to a pit on the sea floor. She lays between 250,000 and 3,000,000 eggs and holds them under her abdomen. She carries these eggs for up to eight months until they hatch into tiny larvae called zoea.

As the larvae grow, they transition through several stages. They first become postlarvae, known as megalopa, before becoming juveniles. In the juvenile stage, they have a large abdomen that eventually shrinks and folds under the body. These young crabs live in the intertidal zone before migrating to deeper water once they reach a certain size. Growth rates vary by sex; males grow faster than females. This is likely because females must spend much more energy on egg production.

Humans have interacted with these crabs through a massive commercial fishery. This is the largest crab fishery in Western Europe. Fishermen use baited traps called crab pots or creels to catch them. In 2007, the annual catch reached 60,000 tonnes. Much of this is caught around the coasts of Britain and Ireland. To protect the population, many regions have minimum landing sizes. These rules ensure that crabs are large enough to have reproduced before they are caught.

The history of how we name these animals began with Carl Linnaeus. In 1758, he described the species in his work *Systema Naturae*. Later, in 1810, Pierre André Latreille designated *Cancer* as the genus for this species. While the genus *Cancer* once included many different crabs, it is now limited to only eight species. Interestingly, the closest relative to the edible crab is the Jonah crab, *C. borealis, found in North America. This connection shows how closely related different species can be across vast oceans.