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Giant Crabs

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Anonymous

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This is my first post - so forgive me for my lack of knowledge on... well, anything.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone can help me here. Several friends of mine swear to the existence of crabs that grow to the size of 'small cars'. Apparently they're called Chinese Spider Crabs or Chinese Water Crabs or something like that, and they get up to 16 feet across (don't know if this is claw to claw or not)

I can't find anything about these anywhere - I've searched for all kinds of stuff on Google etc. but no joy. Has anyone heard of these at all? I've been told they had one on the Big Breakfast once (so it must be true!).

Any help anyone can give me would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
I bet them things are good eatin'.


What--my coat already? I just got here!
 
If there's one thing that really puts the ladies off then it's giant crabs.
 
I wonder who was the crazy fool, who, way back when, first decided to have a munch on a crab? What would possess you to try and snap apart all those defences? I took one on overseas and came off worst, and that was a dead crab on my dinner plate!
 
World's largest edible crab invades Norway

I read another article (was it on the FT breaking news page? Maybe some other cryptozoology site) saying that scientists thought they might eventually colonise as far south as Portugal. :eek!!!!:

Apparently they were brought from the Pacific coast (so could be a species also found in China/Japan) to western Russia to be farmed for food during the Stalin era, and after the fall of Communist Russia farms were neglected and the crabs escaped...

Edit: ah here it was, linked to from http://www.cryptozoology.com : "Red Army" of monster crabs heads west
 
Thanks for the help! I tell you, I can never find stuff I'm searching for on the internet. Honestly, I could type it 'Hot Lesbian Schoolgirls' and I'm sure I wouldn't find any matches.

Anyway, cheers. My friend changed his story quite a bit after I showed him the links. The crab was no longer the size of a Mini, he meant they stretched it across the top of a Mini and it was the same length, claw to claw. Not quite the same thing!
 
we have spider crabs here in california. we used to catch them off of the jettis (?) near Monterey at Moss Landing, which is also an area for large sharks. none were as big as that beast next to the scientist, but there some scary lookin shits ill tell you that. i hate crabs....
 
I still have nightmares about crabs. As a child I went camping with family friends and we slept in tents on the beach. When I woke in the morning the outside of my tent was covered with crabs. :shudder: I didnt need to see those pictures. :glum:
 
King crabs march towards the Pole

By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

A shellfish released in the Arctic waters of the Barents sea in 1961 has taken a huge step to expand its range.
The species is the king crab, a native of the Bering sea and the area round Kamchatka in the Russian far east.

It was brought to western Russia in a bizarre experiment to provide a new catch for the Soviet fishing fleet.

Now, to the dismay of scientists, the crab has reached the Svalbard archipelago, an island group almost half-way to the North Pole.

The species can grow to 1.5 metres across (including its legs) and weigh up to eight kilogrammes, making it the world's biggest edible crab.

Vassily Spiridonov is a marine biologist working for the Russian section of WWF, the global environment campaign.

Lying low

He told BBC News Online: "For some years after their release in the Barents sea it looked as if the crabs had simply disappeared.

"Nobody heard anything about them until the late seventies. But during the nineties we had quite a big growth in the population in Russian waters."

The crabs had already begun migrating westwards from the point where they had been released, off the Kola peninsula, with Norwegian fishermen starting to report catches in the 1980s.

In 2002 the crabs were found 215 kilometres (115 miles) off the mainland of Norway.

But the news that they have reached Norwegian-administered Svalbard suggests their previously steady onwards march has now accelerated into more of a sprint.

The islands lie about half-way between northern Norway and the Pole, and the crab found this summer in a Svalbard fjord was probably carried there on the currents.

Voracious eaters

But they are known to be making progress southwards down Norway's west coast as well. Scientists think they are advancing at about 50 km (31 miles) a year, though that could be an underestimate.

Although the crabs are a commercially important resource which fetches high prices in Japan, and in parts of Europe, there is concern about their impact on their surroundings.

Dr Spiridonov said: "The population is now really huge, and they're fish predators - they can eat everything.

"They don't compete directly with any other species, as they're generalists, but they do alter the balance of the ecosystem.

"And the total biomass of fish that live near the bottom of the Barents sea is lower than in the sea of Okhotsk, the crabs' original home off Kamchatka."

The crabs can live for up to 25 years, and a single adult has been known to eat 400-700 grammes of scallops in two days.

Ironically, the king crabs' expansive behaviour in their new home is mirrored by a decline in their native far east.

The crabs are one of the most valuable catches in the west Bering sea, which lies between Kamchatka and the US state of Alaska.

Dr Spiridonov told BBC News Online: "About 100,000 crabs a year were caught legally in the far east during the 1990s, and there's a lot of illegal fishing too.

"They're now in severe danger there, and they could become commercially extinct across their entire range."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3149782.stm
 
Hi everyone,

I am very interested in giant crabs; I remember seeing a Keith Floyd cookery programme one time and they showed a Queensland mud crab that measured about 4 foot across the width of it's shell!!

Does anybody have any other stories or info regarding giant crabs? I mean really big buggers, 5 foot or more...

Thanks in advance...
 
kevin_latch said:
...they showed a Queensland mud crab that measured about 4 foot across the width of it's shell...
Were they feeding it on steroids? This Fisheries Research site from Australia lists them as about 6 inches across...
The Japanese spider crab is listed as the biggest (known, living) crab, with a 15 inch shell and legs that can reach up to 13 feet across...
 
No, I'm pretty sure this crab was really massive; Keith Floyd had to haul the thing up with both hands and said that it's claws would easily take a finger off!

'Course, I could of been dreaming all along.... :D
 
This is the biggest I could find. That's chefs Phil Vickery and Nick Nairn in the foreground.

crab1.jpg
 
"I saw a mudcrab the other day .... disgusting creatures, I hope never to see another"*









* will not be the least bit amusing to anyone who hasn't played at least 200 hours of Oblivion
 
The Tasmanian Giant crab has a shell / carapace up to approximately 18 inches across, with pincers / legs each going a further 18 inches or so. That could well be the beastie Floyd had a grip on...

There's a nice pic here that show the size...
 
Wow, that's a big bugger; you wouldn't want to come across that whilst dipping your toes in a rock pool!!

It's funny that although I am interested in crabs I am absolutley terrified of them! I'm a surfer and spend mst of my free time in the sea, but if I see even a two-inch crab I scream like a girl and run.

I must have been nipped by one as a kidbut can't remember it (must have erased it from my memory!!);

I wonder how many other people have a crab-phobia :(
 
Kabourophobia, apparently. So enought that there's a name for it. :?
 
Thankyou for that my friend; I now have a name for my pain!!!

Enough crab stuff;

bye...
 
Has anyone else ever thought how hideously disgustingly scary these lovely creatures must look to eat for someone who has never seen one?

I mean I've seen people feeling sick when watching Amazonian indians eating a tarantula or Africans eating fat maggots from the ground. TBH both look more appetising to me than a crab or a prawn or lobster, which look themselves like strange spider-like pink things.
Now I'm used to them and love both the animals alive and cooked ["Pinchy would have wanted me to do this..."] but who are we to get stuck up when people around the world have other delicatessen that look just as good to them as crabs do to us?

Strange isn't it?
 
kevin_latch said:
I am very interested in giant crabs; I remember seeing a Keith Floyd cookery programme one time and they showed a Queensland mud crab that measured about 4 foot across the width of it's shell!!

Are you sure you're not getting Keith Floyd mixed up with Guy N. Smith?
 
Yes, I have read 'Killer Crabs' by Guy N Smith

Story was rubbish, but the sex scenes 'comforted' me on many a teenage night; (ahem...)
 
There are tales of those Iapanese crabs killing people but I dont know if any have been confirmed.

And your right, Dingo, seafood eating is pretty gross. I have friends who are seafood fanatics and the yuck they eat has to be seen to be believed. Limpets are a famine food historicaly, but I know people who are delighted should they come across a big fat one. (and they are a lot safer to eat than filter feeding shellfish.) every neap tide another friend is at the extreeme low water, digging out razor clams, and I wont mention Elvers...
 
Totally freaked me out as a child when I read 'Killer Crabs', especially the bit when the captain of the Japanese trawller is pinned down by a six foot long crab, and the guy is disembowled alive; ARGGGHHH!!!!!!
 
Outside the coast of Norway we got something called the King Crab. Originally it only lived in the arctic oceans north of Russia and Alaska/Canada but has expanded its territory down to the Norwegian coast.

Heres one King Crab
 
I didn't know there was a giant crab thread.

I guess if that one doesn't belong here then nothing does. :D
 
ChrisBoardman said:
I didn't know there was a giant crab thread.

I guess if that one doesn't belong here then nothing does. :D

It has been silent for almost 8 years, you have roused its depths.
 
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