Wednesday, November 30, 2011

St. Andrew's Day

Happy Saint Andrew's Day!!

I was not aware of this day until I looked at my calendar, but it is Scotland's official national day! It is also the Independence Day of Barbados! Holy celebrations, Crabman!

get it??


In honor of both, lets check out each country's crabs. Similar to Irelend, two of Scotland's predominant crabs are the edible crab Cancer pagurus and the velvet swimming crab Necora puber. We learned about N. puber (aka the devil crab) before when thousands of them washed up along England's shores. Both crabs are widely used in Scottish dishes and have been a greater focus as lobster (Homarus gammarus) stocks have decreased.

a decidedly Scottish brown (or edible) crab

4185 miles away, Barbados is home to some adorable land crabs Gecarcinus ruricola who make an annual migration to the sea to release their clutches (similar to the Christmas Island red crabs we read about). But even cooler than that is their common name: zombie crab!

a zombie crab on the hunt

OK, so they're not really brain munchers (exclusively), but their name is pretty fantastic!

horrifying.

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