Emerita analoga
The Pacific sand crab is a small crustacean growing up to 35 mm long and 25 mm wide. The female is nearly twice as large as the male and can often be identified by the orange egg mass carried under the telson. The species is common on the beaches of California, but greater changes in population levels occur further north.
About Emerita analoga in brief
The Pacific sand crab is a small crustacean growing up to 35 mm long and 25 mm wide. The female is nearly twice as large as the male and can often be identified by the orange egg mass carried under the telson. The adult is sand-coloured and well camouflaged, and has no claws or spines. It has five pairs of legs and three pairs of pleopods. Sand crabs moult periodically, so their exoskeletons may be found washed up on the beach. The sand crab occurs in North America from Alaska to Baja California and in South America, where it is found from Salaverry, Peru, southwards to around Cape Horn and into southern Argentina.
The species is common on the beaches of California, but greater changes in population levels occur further north, probably as a result of variations in the coastal currents which in some years passively disperse the planktonic larval stages northwards. The diet is plankton, mostly consisting of dinoflagellates. Surf fishermen use the crabs for bait and extract them from the beach for commercial fisheries.
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This page is based on the article Emerita analoga published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
