King crab
| King crab | ||||||||||||
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Paralithodes camtschaticus |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Paralithodes camtschaticus | ||||||||||||
| ( Tilesius , 1815) |
The king crab or Kamchatka crab ( Paralithodes camtschaticus ), sometimes also called monster crab due to its size , is a large medium crab from the stone and king crab family . So she does not belong to the crabs in the strict sense. It is considered a delicacy and is fished extensively.
At first it only occurred in the northern Pacific (especially before Japan and Alaska ) until it was also settled in northern Europe in the Barents Sea , from where it spread as a bio-invasive species .
distribution
At the end of the 1960s, the crab was released by Russian researchers in the Barents Sea near Murmansk , where it reproduced vigorously as planned. To this day it has advanced to the Norwegian Lofoten Islands . The resettlement campaign was initiated by the General Secretaries of the Soviet Union Josef Stalin and his successor Nikita Khrushchev in order to improve the supply situation in Moscow and Murmansk.
features
The carapace (back armor) of the king crab reaches a size of 25 cm, while it can weigh up to 17 kilograms. The leg span can be up to 180 cm. King crabs can be of different colors, each depending on the diet. The most common color is red, but blue and brown also occur.
It feeds on almost anything it can find, mainly clams , starfish , algae, and carrion . Like other crabs, king crabs must molt in order to grow because they have an exoskeleton . Cannibalism occurs in the baskets . As decapods, the animals have five pairs of legs, the first of which has claws, the right of which is always larger than the left; the former is used for fighting, the latter for eating. The opposite of the palm thief , but just like right-handed hermit crabs , king crabs are "monostrophic right-sheared". The fifth pair of legs is hidden in the gill cavity, is shortened and has the function of a cleaning brush. The legs will grow back when these abnormal crabs lose them.
Life
Life expectancy is around 30 years. The females of the king crab lay between 400,000 and 500,000 eggs. About 2 percent of these reach adulthood, i.e. H. there are 8,000 to 10,000 offspring per female. The young hide in the ground until they are big enough. Adult king crabs, like many other crabs, are cannibalistic. Sometimes it happens that many conspecifics come together in large piles and stack on top of each other. Why they do this is not yet clear. From the spread up to the Lofoten one could deduce an annual speed of spread of 50 km.
use
Adult king crabs have hardly any natural enemies, which is one of the main reasons they have been able to spread so quickly in the Barents Sea and on the Norwegian coast. Because of its palatability, the crab is popular in Russia and Asia. In Norway, therefore, similar to salmon farming, potential for management is seen: the crabs are caught and fattened for around two months to the desired meat quality and quantity before they are marketed. The crab is also fished directly, which is why Norway has passed protective laws: Only adult males are allowed to be caught. In Norwegian fish markets, crab legs, only these are suitable for consumption, are traded as a delicacy at 100 € / kg.
criticism
It is often suspected that the animals could cause an ecological disaster. In December 2010, a group of environmental activists dumped around 2,000 live specimens in front of the Ministry of Fisheries in Oslo and demanded the extermination of the animals - sometimes denigrated by the Norwegians as “stalin crabs” - on the coast of the country. The nature conservation organization WWF also called on the Norwegian government to stop the animals from spreading.
In the German tabloid press it is regularly rumored that “the monster” will spread further south and at some point injure bathers on Sylt . Serious marine biologists do not take part in such calls. On the one hand, the crab has not spread into the warm Pacific Ocean in its original habitat; on the other hand, it is likely (but not yet fully researched) that certain (warm water) microorganisms of the crab make it impossible to survive south of central Norway.
Web links
- Report on the commercial use of the king crab
- DHL promotional video for shrimp shipping, from December 2018
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gunnar Herrmann: Monster from the depths . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 6, 2010 (online version accessed on March 21, 2012).