Horseshoe Crab Adventure

The other day I went to Katama Bay with my mom, my brother, his friend Marvin, Amanda, Matt, Noah and our two Jack Russels, Theo and Leo. The pond was extremely shallow so we could walk across it, but we bought a kayak to put all of our gear in and our two dogs. As we walked across, Matt spotted a large horseshoe crab. I picked it up and showed it to everyone.

We kept walking and started to see what we came for...hundreds of baby horseshoe crabs.

The horseshoe crabs were literally everywhere. You had to watch where you were stepping or else you would step on a baby horseshoe crab!  

If you look closely, you can see two horseshoe crabs moving.

I showed lots of them to Noah. He had a mixed opinion about them and mainly threw them after I handed them to him.  

When we got to the other side, I immediately went over to a spot where I had previously caught fiddler crabs. I started to use a technique I came up with where you use the end of a net or a shovel and you stick in into the sand blocking off their tunnel and forcing them to come out. After catching around twenty fiddler crabs my brother, Marvin, and I started to build a big castle/arena/home for the fiddlers crabs. We made a center walled in area and and put the crabs in it momentarily. Next I made holes all around the walled in area for the crabs to make tunnels in. We kept adding walls around it until it was almost like a kingdom made for fiddler crabs.    

Most of these fiddler crabs are male. Females have two smalls claws while the males have one small claw and one large claw. This distinction is unique to fiddler crab. Can you spot the female?

In this video, a fiddler crab is digging a new tunnel.

I really enjoyed showing everyone one of my favorite places on the island.