taylor.daughtry
IMG_1937-1
I was at beach access 38 in Wrightsville Beach this past Saturday (1/20/18). I decided to take a walk to go look for seashells when I came across this awesome creature. This is a Blue Crab, also know as Callinectes sapidus. I was able to identify the type of crab from a picture that I found off Google (Figure 1). On the front of the shell, they have something called anterolateral teeth. The Blue Crab has eight of these teeth. When I first saw the blue crab, I immediately started thinking about why the shell was pink. After doing a little bit of research, I could not really find anything that specifically stated why the shell turned pink. My theory is that when the organism died, it lost all the oxygen that normally regulated within it’s body. Perhaps the oxygen had something to do with the color pigments that makeup the shell or it could have been something as simple as long exposure in the sun which caused it to bleach. I do know that crabs will camouflage through color change in order to fit in with their surroundings. A lot of the time it’s so they can hide from predators. Maybe this crab wanted to blend in with the seashells.
Figure 1 -http://njscuba.net/biology/sw_crabs.php
#ecology #uncw #bio366 #uncweteal #Sp2018 #image1 #Wilmington #NC #Wrightsvillebeach
IMG_1937-1
I was at beach access 38 in Wrightsville Beach this past Saturday (1/20/18). I decided to take a walk to go look for seashells when I came across this awesome creature. This is a Blue Crab, also know as Callinectes sapidus. I was able to identify the type of crab from a picture that I found off Google (Figure 1). On the front of the shell, they have something called anterolateral teeth. The Blue Crab has eight of these teeth. When I first saw the blue crab, I immediately started thinking about why the shell was pink. After doing a little bit of research, I could not really find anything that specifically stated why the shell turned pink. My theory is that when the organism died, it lost all the oxygen that normally regulated within it’s body. Perhaps the oxygen had something to do with the color pigments that makeup the shell or it could have been something as simple as long exposure in the sun which caused it to bleach. I do know that crabs will camouflage through color change in order to fit in with their surroundings. A lot of the time it’s so they can hide from predators. Maybe this crab wanted to blend in with the seashells.
Figure 1 -http://njscuba.net/biology/sw_crabs.php
#ecology #uncw #bio366 #uncweteal #Sp2018 #image1 #Wilmington #NC #Wrightsvillebeach