How do you burp a crab?

Did you know our crabs get burped? Now you do! It's time to burp the crabs and also listen to Aquarist Melissa talk about the Aquarium's spider crabs.

Thank you for another fun season of Aquarium of the Podcific! Follow @podcific on Instagram for updates and more. We'll sea you soon!

Episode transcript

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hi, I'm Erin Lundy. And I'm Madeline Walton, and this is Aquarium of the Pacific, a podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Pacific, Southern California's largest aquarium.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Join us as we learn alongside the experts in animal care, conservation, and more. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Welcome back to the last episode of the season.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

That's so sad. Season two is over. Season two is complete. But first, before season two is over, let's learn probably the most.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

It's not over yet.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Well, okay. At the end of this. It'll be over. It'll be over. But before it's over, we are going to learn about crabs because we actually had a listener request an episode specifically about crabs so that she could share it with one of her friends who loves crabs. And that was just the sweetest thing. It made us so happy we're like, yeah, we're gonna do that. Immediately scrapped everything else. We're recording a crab episode. Right now. And to be fair, I think that's what we always wanted anyway. Who doesn't want to learn about crabs?

SPEAKER_02 1:02

I learned so much. We just finished recording. I learned so much about crabs.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Yeah, we just talked to Melissa Fisher, who's one of our aquarists in our temperate gallery, and she has spent quite a bit of time with our Japanese spider crabs. And so our episode is focused specifically on this one species, but we learn about crab raves. We learn about crabs potentially summoning something from the underworld and what their checkups look like. Uh crab facelift. Like the just the coolest episode. And that's a really interesting one. More dynamic animals than I ever imagined. Yeah, they have personalities. They're decorating things. They're getting jazzed up. They're getting a facelift. They're getting surgery.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

It's just it's a good time. It's a really cool episode. But thank you guys so much for joining us for another season on Pod Civic. We had a blast making it for you. And we'll be back for season three soon-ish.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

And in season three, hopefully, we will have resolved some of our recording studio issues. So we will have more consistent episodes that sound more consistent as well. That sound a little bit better too. We're getting new equipment. We're sort of making sure everything is sounding top-notch for you guys. So we really appreciate everyone hanging tight and listening to us talk about our animals. It's been the best time ever. It truly has.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Erin, for co-hosting with me.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

And no thanks to Madeline for Zero thanks. Literally does all the editing and co-hosting. And no thanks to you. Thanks to me. No, it's been it's been wonderful. And thanks to everyone who has been supporting the podcast the whole way through. And for everyone who's been on this season, we've had some really great interviews too.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

And if you have a suggestion or a request for a future episode, definitely reach out. You can email the aquarium at aquariumofpacific at lbaop.org, or you can always message us on either any social media account, truly. It'll get to me. It's all Madeline. I'm the one, I'm the one responding to you most of the time. But you can reach out there and we're at Aquarium Pacific pretty much everywhere on the internet. And we also have a podcast specific Instagram. It's at Pod Pacific. So check it out. Give us a follow on Instagram. And Madeline will see every single message you send.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

And we may even record an entire episode just because you asked us to talk about your favorite animal or species. Yeah. Which is what we're doing today. So do that. And learn about crabs. And learn about crabs. Right now. All right. We'll see you next season, everybody. Today we are joined by Melissa Fisher, who's one of our aquarists in our temperate gallery. Melissa, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

I'm doing great, guys. How are you? Good. Pretty good. What's temperate gallery? Can you explain what that means to our audience? Our temperate gallery is what we call any of our cold water exhibits. So that includes our Northern Pacific Gallery, which is gonna range a little bit colder, to our local Southern California gallery, which is a little bit warmer. But anything pretty much under 70 degrees is what we cover. That's cold.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

That is a little too cold. I think it's funny that SoCal, I mean, because it is, is considered a temperate water habitat. Our water's cold.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

It's pretty cold.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

It's pretty misunderstood that I would think that, you know, people think they go to the beach here and it's warm. It's cold. Every beach I go to is so cold.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, it's pretty cold. I was just diving the other day and it was like 50 degrees. So my god, in the middle of summer, it's July.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

It was July. It was 50 degrees. I could never I I grew up in Hawaii and so I'm used to water being like 72. And if it's any lower than that, freezing. Bath water, please. Yeah. I will go in the ocean if it is a bath and nothing else.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Amazing. Well, today we are going to talk about crabs, which we're really excited about because it's our first listener-requested episode. And Melissa has specifically worked with our spider crabs here at the aquarium, which is a very iconic species, I feel like.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Yeah, if you look at our Japanese spider crabs, they are enormous and they are always doing something sort of silly in their exhibit. And today I even noticed they have new furniture in there. So do they really?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

They do.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

What's new in there?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Uh we added an old whale fall simulated exhibit that we had in a previous gallery like six plus years ago.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

So I think that was a ri like part of that habitat a long time. Once upon a time. Once upon a time.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yes. They kind of get it. It's back.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Wow, this is this is breaking news. Yes. This is huge news. Podcific update. That's so cool. I'm excited to see it. I haven't seen it yet.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah, it seems like they're enjoying it. I've seen them crawling on it a lot.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

What is a what is a whale fall? Can you tell our audience about that?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Sure. So a whale fall is kind of what it sounds like. Uh it's usually when a deceased whale has fallen to the bottom of the ocean, um, which is sad, but it actually provides a very rich habitat for a lot of different animals. And so they use all of the whale for food, for um even hiding, and it brings about a lot of different kinds of animals, a bunch of different inverts, but also large uh sharks and other pelagic animals, and it creates a habitat in an area that usually would have nothing.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Fascinating. It's pretty cool. I mean, like the bottom of the ocean, especially where light's not reaching, there's nothing growing down there, and it must be so hard for like new nutrients to be introduced that far down. And so it's cool if you ever look up videos of whale falls, which makes me sound like I'm a very weird person. But you'll just see like a million crabs just coming and swarming this whale fall because they're like, hey, nutrients and food, and they must sense it from like miles away. Like, but you don't currently take care of the spider crab habitat, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

I do not. I uh stopped taking care about it a month ago, but uh right now I'm doing a lot of work with our white abalonies. Um, and then I have a couple of our filter feeding exhibits in our SoCal gallery. Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Or recently renovated a year ago.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, SoCal Gallery.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

And it's looking really nice.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

And you can see abalonies on exhibit. You can.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

We'll have to talk about abalone's in a future episode.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Yeah, we really, especially the white abalone project that we have here. Um, but as it relates to our spider crabs, why don't you tell us a little bit about what it was like taking care of that species? Silly habitat. Silly species, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:03

So I was a little bit nervous going in because they're kind of large, strange animals, and I really didn't have any experience. They're pretty big, and ours are not even as big as they can get. So sometimes when you look at other aquariums, ours even look a little puny. But how big do they get? They can get up to uh 12 feet from uh from like leg to leg, which is like the largest recorded.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Um good Will Falls to be that big. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

So ours are not that big, but they are still pretty big. So I was a little nervous going into it. Um and I was like, what if they pinch me? Like, this is what do I do?

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Uh such a valid fear, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Crabs are very polarizing even in our department. Like, there are people that I work with who just hate crabs and they're terrified of them. And for like, you know, real reasons, they can be a little bit of a jerk, but um, I really enjoyed working with them. Um, they're very silly and they require a lot of baby and special attention. But I enjoyed getting to know their personalities and kind of seeing like how we can make their lives a little bit better. There's a lot that we don't know about crabs from um even like a veterinary standpoint, so there's a lot of issues we can have, and it's kind of fun to experiment to see how we can make them better.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Do people who have beef with crabs do they also have it with other crustaceans or is it crab specific?

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Ooh, I don't know. I feel like it might be crustaceans as a whole, but I feel like crabs, at least for us, because the crustaceans that we usually work with here are spiny lobsters that don't have like the claws, so I don't know if that makes a difference. And if we had our like the other lobsters that have claws at the back of the city. So I don't know if it's like the claws themselves or just the way that they're kind of just like sea bugs.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

I don't know. Do what do they do when you are diving in their exhibit with them?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Um they usually run away and they kind of usually hide in a corner. Um, but we when we get in there, we like to give their shells little scrubs because uh it kind of helps prevent any like shell rot or um it kind of extends their their life. Also, we you know we're an aquarium, so we do want to present the best kind of animal that we can. Uh in the wild, these scrabs are not gonna look as pretty as they do here. Um, but so usually after we're done with our like other maintenance, we'll go and we'll kind of sneak up on them and you can kind of just hold their butt a little bit, and then you take a little toothbrush and you give them a nice little scrub. Um, I wouldn't say they necessarily love it, uh, but it is good for them.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

So I have a video of Aquarius Sarah scrubbing the crabs, and TikTok had this thing where you just type a word and it makes it into a song. So there's a TikTok that did really well, and it was, it's time to scrub the crab. Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

It's time to scrub the crabs. It's time to grab the crab, it's time to grab the crabs, it's time to scrub the crab.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

I forget how. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

I would definitely sing that in my head if I were scrubbing them.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Every time you're scrubbing the crabs.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Every time, I mean, you're just sitting there in the water with yourself, so you might as well sing to yourself the scrubbing the crab song.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

So crabs like being sung too. Great.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

I think so. Now we know. I sing and talk to a lot of my animals. I don't know if they appreciate it, but it makes me feel better.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah. I mean, every time I walk into the mountain frog room, I'm like, hello, babies! And they don't care about me. But I feel better.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

It's singing as freely. Yeah. That's amazing. Okay, so I know we're specifically going to talk about spider crabs today, but can you tell us a little bit about what makes a crab different from other crustaceans? What makes a crab a crab?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, so uh crabs are part of the arthropod um family. So they are bugs. Yeah, right. And they are specifically part of the order uh Decapoda, which means that they have ten legs. So true crabs will have four walking legs and then two legs that um have evolved to be kind of like uh claws. Um so not all crabs have that, and they tend not to be true crabs. So, for example, a horseshoe crab is not a true crab, and some of the king crabs are fake crabs as well. Yeah, they only have six legs, I believe. Um but yeah, they have an exoskeleton, um, and so that is a big thing about being a crustacean. But yeah, it's definitely the ten legs that are gonna kind of put them apart.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

King crabs aren't crabs? Apparently, not all of them. You heard it here first, those aren't crabs, they're fake donors. We don't know what they are. Wait, are crabs that are ten-legged crabs? How closely related are they to lobster? Like, are they more closely related to lobsters or like another ten-legged insect or architect?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

I think lobsters, because they're still part of like the crustaceans, and then it just like kind of like goes down from there. What about their life cycles? I feel like with crustaceans, they seemed very they seem very long-lived. Is that true? Do they live pretty long?

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, it depends on the species. Um and it can be anywhere from, you know, a a short lifespan of like a year or two, but actually spider crabs, they think that they can live up to a hundred years. A hundred? How old are ours? Um we've our longest one that we've had in collection, uh, we've had for I think six plus years, but they also came to us this size, so they're already full grown. Quite quite old. Possibly, yeah, older than possibly a hundred. Possibly. I don't know about a hundred, but they they they say that they can live fifty to a hundred years. It's still, since they live so deep, our knowledge of them is still limited, but that's what they they think. Do they grow indefinitely? Um, their carapace, which is their main body, has a limit of what they can grow. Um so apparently for spider crabs, it's about 12 inches max, but then their legs continue to grow. Oh. Yeah, so that's how you're gonna get to the 12 feet. Really?

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Okay, so pretty much their bodies are all the same size, relative size is their legs. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

So we're taller than that. I kind of wish that was me. Like my corso stayed the same legs. Oh, my legs are so long, right? Right. Because I'm a hundred. It's gonna be a hundred. That is so weird. Extremely tall. Wow. That's amazing. Wow, that's really fascinating. It really is. Maybe they're trying to reach the light, you know. They're like, I gotta get that's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Maybe I think there's like a limit of like how heavy they get. It's true.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

They're just like on stilts at a certain point. That's fair. That's fascinating. That's so cool. This is the best crab knowledge I've ever had. Truly. That's really funny.

unknown 13:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

What about their reproduction? How how do they make more of them?

SPEAKER_01 14:00

So usually the females will hold on to the eggs um on the underside of their abdomen. Um, and then they'll actually like hatch and become a platonic larvae. And then they live in the water column for a while before they start growing up into actually looking like crabs.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

That seems like the case for like a lot of ocean animals in general. Like non-mammal ocean animals seem like they always have like this is my plankton phase, and like right? Yeah, same as middle school photos seems really hard. Everyone starts as a plankton for some reason. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

It seems kind of brutal to just, you know float around forever to just hope I hope and make it.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, and I think a females can have like hundreds, if not thousands, of eggs, but only a few are going to survive, like most animals that have a planktonic stage.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

Yeah. I've then they hold them in that like apron-looking place. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's very if you ever look at the underside of a crab, which is the craziest look, it looks like you're looking under a car. It's very strange. There's so many like parts and bits and things. But the females have like an apron that kind of opens and they got water over it.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah. I think it actually is technically called. Yeah. And you can actually so it's nice because you can actually tell male and female like crabs and crustacean genetic in general apart. Um the males, the females are gonna have like a wider um uh abdomen just because then they have more room for the eggs, and then the males are going to have like a slightly more narrow one because they don't have to do that. Do we have males and females here? We currently in our population of spider crabs only have males. Um we have in our history had both, but it's kind of noted that if you have multiple or both sexes that um there's gonna be a lot more fighting. Um, and so we have found that if we keep to one sex that it's a little bit easier to control and a little bit less aggression. That's fair. But there are places that have both, and you can totally do it. But just a little bit more.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

Have is there ever any like breeding under human care of the species or is it pretty difficult?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

To my knowledge, I don't know if there has been. I know there has been um like eggs seen, uh, but I don't think there's been a successful closing of the like life cycle.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Go from microscopic to 12 feet tall. Like that's yeah. That's a big jump. It's huge.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

So in our habitat here, we have only males. Do you see kind of different times of year an increase in more aggressive behavior towards each other, or is it just kind of depending on the day? Because I've seen sometimes them sparring with each other a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

I have personally not seen a like specific time of year. Um, there might be, but I feel like right now because we keep our habitat pretty stable, like our at the moment we don't really change our temperature and our our light cycle is about the same, so I don't see it as much. Um it's really, I feel like individual dependent too. There have been ones that we've had that are a little bit more of a bully than other ones. And so that's kind of yeah, so that's kind of dependent right now. The uh four that we have are pretty docile. I feel like I see them most active like in the morning, or where you're gonna see it the most is like when you start introducing food in the water. Um, depending on how you feed them, we sometimes we target them, which means we literally take a pole and then we offer a piece to each one, um, which is great because it means we know that they're each eating. But if you are not fast enough, sometimes the other ones will come running um and then they'll start like locking legs and trying to get to the And they're pretty fast.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

And they're pretty fast how big they are, they're kind of clumsy too.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

I've seen them just so that happens. Um, sometimes we'll scatter feed for enrichment purposes and for like uh foraging purposes, um, and then you'll see it a little bit less because then they can all kind of spread out. So, but I haven't noticed a specific pattern.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

What do we feed them?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

So we feed them a variety of things. So uh crabs in general tend to be scavengers, um, they live on the bottom and they kind of go for like dead or decaying fish. Um, they'll go for uh different inverts that are on the bottom. They've been known to like open up like shells and all this. Um, and then they actually also eat algae. So we kind of do a mixture of things. We'll offer them different kinds of fish, um even like cablein, herring. Um they love shrimp right now. Shrimp is their favorite food.

SPEAKER_04 18:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Um, but we'll also offer them things that are in um hard-shelled items, so like hard-shelled clams or mussels. Um that's kind of good for them too, because sometimes they'll get like the calcium from the shells. Um, and then we also have uh gel that is specifically created for crustaceans that'll have some of the like algae nutrients that we would want them to eat. Yeah, they don't love it, so you usually have to like sneak it in. Um so we usually take like a half shell muscle and we like shove gel behind it so that they're like already just shoving food in there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Um they've also been known to eat like nori, which is seaweed. Um it's not their favorite, and uh, but it is good for them.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Just picture one holding a piece of nori. It's cute. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

It is yeah, they like usually will like hold it and then they'll let it go and then it just floats away, and you're like, well, that was not helpful.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Unless we watched it happen though. When we have animal, like all of our animals here receive some sort of vitamin supplementation. And I guess I never really considered how difficult that might be to give a crab. Whereas the sea lions, they eat fish whole, and so you put a vitamin in a fish and they'll never know the difference. Are there other animals that you've worked with that are hard to get their vitamins?

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yes, well, it depends, like the smaller the animal, uh, if you're trying to do like a pill or something, it's harder because your pieces are smaller. Um, I've worked with a lot of animals that have gotten smart with the vitamins and they um will chew around it and then spit the vitamins out.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

That's my dog.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Um a lot of our like larger elasma brinks have figured this out. Oh yeah. You just can if you go to Shark Loon, you'll see like vitamins just like scattered on the bottom. Everywhere. There'll be like rays that will like if you give them like a medicine or something that's not necessarily vitamin, they'll like chew around everything and you just see it like float up. It's amazing. Yeah. So it's usually easiest if you're just doing, we have we use what's called Vita fish for a lot of our smaller animals. That's just like a liquid that we can pour over and it can soak in. That's easy because it's already in the food. If you have to put pills in things, um, if they have to chew a lot, they tend to pop them out.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

They know.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

They know.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Sure, there's some parents and pet parents too out there that are like, yep, yeah, totally not. My dog.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Yep. Same. Every time I try to give him his flea medication, he manages to eat all the cheese and then the pill appears on his bed later. And I'm like, how do you get this? It's a magic trick. But turns out our sharks also are tricky about their baby. They are, as are our crabs. So it's funny. Wow. I've never really considered how to give a vitamin too.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah, it's hard, especially if things don't eat it um like our seals and sea lions, they'll just swallow things. Uh, if when things pick at things, then they can like throw it to the ground and you just see it like littered everywhere, and you're like, cool. Guess I'm gonna clean that up now.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Do crabs have mouths, like proper mouths, or I see those little this is not gonna translate to an audio format, but those little like the feathery things. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

So they they use and they use those to put it into their actual mouths.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Are they chewing at that point or are they just kind of like I don't know if they're chewing?

SPEAKER_01 21:30

I it they usually like I see them break things off into like tear and smaller pieces, and then they can like put it down here. Yeah. Yes, but it's usually like you'll see them like picking and they'll use the ones by their face, the smaller ones, to like hold it to, and then they can like eat from there. Sometimes they use their larger claws. Um, depending on the animals, sometimes I target closer to their face and then they'll attach to the food, or sometimes I try to get them to just like hold it far away from them.

SPEAKER_03 21:59

What do you think is The biggest piece of food one of the spider crabs could eat in one bite.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

In one bite? Is it small? It's pretty small. Like even when I feed them like small shrimp, they still tear it up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

They're just tiny. They want to digest well. They do. That's fair. It's healthy. If there's like a clam or a muscle or something that's closed, do you offer them those things and how do they open them?

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yes. Um I personally tend to open them slightly to cheat them a little bit. And then they but they can, if it is closed, um, they can like stick their their claws in and kind of like wedge it and open it. Um ours live a life of luxury and aren't therefore a little lazy like most animals we have here. Um and so I kind of cheat it a little bit so that they can just like pop that little last stuff.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

No, you can clean up after quicker. Correct. It's for you too. We got it started for you.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

We um especially with crustaceans, we track how much each individual is eating or when they're eating a lot because uh them stopping their feeds um if it's not normal is usually a big indicator that they're gonna molt. Um and when they molt, we want to make sure that they're separated from the other animals, and so we kind of try to make sure to watch and tag that every individual is eating.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Speaking of molt, um, yeah, I I was gonna ask you about how you partition off the habitat too, because they become soft, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yes. So for our spider crabs in general, um, we have like this makeshift barrier that we can just put on uh a corner of the exhibit. And if we think anything's going to happen, any molting, or recently we had a crab that underwent some surgery, so we put them back there.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Crab surgery. I gotta that. Okay, please continue.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Actually, really cool. Um and so we can put the that in the exhibit, and so they're still like in the same environment and the crabs are around them, but none of the crabs can like climb over it. Uh, we make it so that it's like flat and there's no like holes because they can climb things with the little holes in them. Um and they'll just hang out there until they're nice and hardened um when crabs or crustaceans in general molt, it's a pretty violent process for them. And when they come out, they're very vulnerable and they're very soft. And if you do not get it in time, um you will probably not have that individual anymore. It's a pretty violent process between everyone.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

And does it kind of spur the other crabs to attack each other or I don't know if it's spurs, but it's almost always like they can sense a vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Your guards down. Yeah, exactly. Your shells are like literally.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

And and it's also so not only when your shell is completely off are you vulnerable, but like while they're undergoing the molting process, it can be as quick as like 25-30 minutes, but it can also last like overnight. And basically, like they shove their body out of a hole in their um old shell. And if anything happens, if they get stuck, if they get torn, they're pretty much dead. Um wow. And so if anyone is around and bothering them, there is a good chance that animal is not gonna survive.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

That's it's so it's really cool to see. We've been able to get some videos of it, and that's interesting. Sometimes it just depends on the the animal how long it takes, maybe how big they are.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Well, it yeah, but I think it's like it's not even species specific per se. It's um even just like animal specific.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

Do they look different when they've just freshly molted?

SPEAKER_01 25:30

They're beautiful. Oh my goodness. Yes, they have like they're perfect. There's not like um so what's really cool about molting is like we would love our animals to molt regularly because it's means that they're healthy and they're growing, but also it um they can regrow their legs when they're molting. So uh spider crabs, especially, their legs are very long and spindly um and they'll fall off sometimes. Um in the wild, it'll happen if like a predator is attacking them. Sometimes they get caught on something. Um, but when they do a molt, that leg grows back. Um, and then if they've had any like holes in their carapace or if there's um what's called like black spot um disease, it's usually either gone or a lot smaller in that next molt. It's basically like a brand new shiny car. Like they are perfect and beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Yeah. I have a question, but I'm not a hundred percent sure how to ask it. So if their leg fell off, or like a predator ate their leg and they were molting again, does do they have like is there something there or does it regrow with the shell coming in? Like do they not have like meat there anymore? Like what happens to regrow their leg?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

From my understanding, the like soft part of the crab um underneath like starts to grow more even right before it molts, so they're already kind of getting ready. So I think that muscle or that flesh is start of exists. It exists and it's starting to grow again, and then when they come out, then it's like formed.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Does it take a couple of molts to fully regrow it, or is it pretty much quicker?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

I think it depends on the animal, but I think you can get like almost a full regrowth.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yeah, it's very impressive. That is cool. Um how often are they molting typically?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Depends on the animal. So for our spider crabs, because of how cold they are and how big they are, they tend to molt the least. Um it can be years here at the aquarium. We tend to see like one molt from them while we have them. Um other smaller crabs that we have, we can see molts like once a year, twice a year. Um we have some lobsters on exhibit uh that are a little they're they're pretty young, so they're pretty small and they're still growing, but we would like one of them molted like every two months. So beautiful. Yeah, they're just yeah. So it really varies.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

It's been a very beautiful lobster.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Right, exactly. But as they get older, they tend to molt less because that's how they're gonna regrow, and because it takes so much effort and it's such a stressful process. Yeah. We would love for them to molt a little bit more. Um but is there anything that can spur the molts, like like a change in the water temperature or some sort of hypothetically, um things have been tried where you can increase or decrease, but usually increase the water temperature to kind of spur that on. Um sometimes if you add like something else to the water to change it up, it can do it. But honestly, it's not a foolproof plan. Usually, like there's no hard concrete way to make a crab mold. It's when they're ready.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

On their own time.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Yeah. It would be nice if we could in induce it though, because we have a few that were like, you're getting a little dirty. So it's time. It's time.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

You need a you need a mannequin. Yeah. Refresh. Do our individual crabs have names?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

They don't have names um at the moment, at least. Um, naming an animal, at least in our department, is kind of specific to the person who has it. There are some people who are very into naming, some people who are not into naming. Um, I'm kind of an in-between. I name some things and I don't name others. What we do have is we do have them tagged. Um, so originally we had them tagged with zip ties and colors, and so they were kind of known by their color. Um, and then right now we have them actually um we remove the zip ties and we basically added this like dot of it's not paint, but essentially like looks like paint on the back of them to tell them apart. Um, and so we use like a mixture of like a coral glue and what's called mica powder um to kind of ID them.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

Jazz them up a little bit. Jazz them up, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

It's pretty nice. We discovered this a little bit ago um originally from learn from tagging some outplanting for abalone, I believe. Um but it's nice because zip ties can fall off. And then if you have a bunch of animals in there and you don't know which one it is, it's a little bit difficult. But this it stays on their shell and so it kind of stays with them. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Yeah, for sure. And that helps you keep track of who's eating, yes, who's acting up, yes, all of that.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

So they don't technically have names, but they have colors. They have colors.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Beautiful. Which one's your favorite?

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Oh, my favorite. Um there's one that's yellow pink, and he likes to sit on the top of um the structure in like the sea of white anemones, of white maternity monemones, anemones. There you go. Um, and so I kind of like to think he's like sitting in the clouds, so he's a little funny. Um and then blue white is our oldest one who's the one who just underwent surgery, and he's he's a little, he's the like least dominant, so he's like chill. He's chill, so I like him too.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Well, I'd love to hear about this surgery and kind of what vet care our crabs receive. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Sure, yeah. So um as like I said, blue white is our oldest crab that we currently have. Um, and because of that, he had some pretty severe shell rot, unfortunately. Um, and a lot of invertebrate medicine is still very experimental, or we know nothing about it, and it's kind of just trial and error. Um, and so we worked with our vet team to be like, what should we do about this? He was still he's still eating, um still acting normally, but it was looking pretty bad, and we were starting to get some questions from guests and from our staff. Um, and so what we actually came up with is we uh made a mold of his carapace um from this really cool new product whose name I'm forgetting. Um that's basically like kind of like um a little bit soft moldable silicone for lack of a better word. Um, and we painted it orange and we basically sanded down the area um and cleaned it up um and we glued it on and it literally looks like part of a regular shell. Oh cool. Um and while this helps obviously uh cosmetic-wise, it's also thought that it's going to help stop the spread of this rot because we're basically smothering all the bacteria or anything else that's stuck in there, um, and it should extend his life by quite a bit. That's awesome. Um but yeah, it was never done before, and it's pretty cool. We tried different ways to see how it was gonna attach. Um, and we like to make the mold, we basically put play-doh around the area to like stop it, to stop the uh little gel that we put in there to harden around it. So I just played with play-doh on a crab and then um let that sit, and then we filled that mold up, and then we tried a couple different ways because we kind of had to make it soft enough that it was gonna bend, but not so soft it was gonna break. Um, and so far, so good. Um, it looks pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Very cool. That's fascinating. He had a little crab facelift.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

He had a little facelift, and he looks ten years young.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

He could be a hundred and ten, but we don't know. You we don't know. We don't know. That's fascinating. Is there any concern that with his next molt that might impact sort of how he molts, or is it they molt so infrequently and he's so old. He'll just come off with the molt?

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, so in theory, if he molts again, which would be awesome, but um it shouldn't impact it because it's like kind of in the top portion. Okay, and they usually will like come up their like butt area. And so in theory, it shouldn't impact. And if they he does end up molting, that area should be reduced in size, if anything. Cool.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Yeah, I'm gonna go look for facelift crab after this. Yes. That's awesome. What about um just in general? Do they get annual checkups or just kind of something you're you're diving with them, you can notice if things are going on?

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yeah, so when we dive with them, we obviously are taking like closer looks and scrubbing at them, but they do get um twice a year. We do what's called a welfare exam on them, and they get an extra special one. So we will lift each crab up individually to the top of the water. It's usually like a three-person process. We usually have someone in the water diving who goes and scoops up the crab, and we bring them up, and then the people on top, we take pictures, um, both on the top and the bottom, and of any problems that we see. And then we have a special form uh that basically is a drawing of a crab on it, and we mark anything that we've noticed, and we give like overall remarks. We look over all of their legs, all of their claws, we look for any new spots on them, if they have anything broken, um, and then we get some measurements on them, and then we put them back and then we swap to the next crab. So they get that twice a year. Um, we try not to handle our crabs any extra than we have to. It's a little bit stressful on them. Um, but it's a good way to like get good eyes on them and to watch the progression of any spots that we're noticing or anything concerning.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

Can they support their weight of their carapace on their legs out of water?

SPEAKER_01 35:03

No, not really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

I was gonna ask if it's detrimental to them for to be out of water for extended.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

So it's not necessarily detrimental. Um actually, people have been known to ship these guys dry, meaning that they literally just put like wet paper towels around them when they ship them. It's not the preferred way, um, but they can survive like that. Um and so they can be out of water. So for like, for example, when we were doing the surgery, we had them out of water, we had water running over their gills like we would have fish. Um, but if the outside of them, as long as they're sitting and kind of like on a supported surface, they're fine.

SPEAKER_04 35:39

Weird.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Um, but yeah, when we take a crab out of water and we put them back, we have to do what's called burping a crab. Um please tell me to know about this. Basically, air gets trapped inside their carapace. Um, and if you leave it in there, it'll create air bubbles around their gills, which will dry out and then eventually kill them. Um, so what we do is we basically put them in the water and we hold them and we tilt them like face down and we just kind of rock them back and forth, and you'll see like air bubbles just coming out, and you keep doing that until the air bubbles are gone, and then they're good to go, and you drop them in.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

It's time to burp the cream. Yeah. Next video. I love coming out.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

It's our technical term for it.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

But yeah, we do that with um pretty much all of our crustaceans if we take them out of the water just because they have like that air that can get trapped inside there.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

That's adorable. Yeah. That's really cool. Well, cool. What about we talked a little bit about it already, too, but maybe their personalities and kind of the social dynamic inside of the exhibit. You said yellow pink kind of has a more spunky personality. Head in the clouds.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Yeah, head in the clouds, yeah. Um, yeah, they each kind of have their own personality. Some are a little bit more dominant, some are um a little bit more shy and reserved. Um they are always doing, I think, like Aaron said earlier, weird things. Um, every time you walk by the tank, you never know. Sometimes you'll just see them sitting on their butt, chilling, and you're like, okay, I guess it's just like a quiet day. Um, but then other days you find them like all huddled in a circle facing each other with their arms up. And I don't know whether they're summoning something from the netherworld or if they're plotting our revenge. Like, I don't know, but they're doing something.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

Um, and other times asking for more burping.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Maybe maybe. Um, and then sometimes we have this um side wall that they can kind of climb, and so you'll see them sometimes climb up and they're very silly. They will climb up it, and then there's a pipe that runs right above the top of the window that helps to bring in water. Um, and they'll like attach to it, and you'll just like see them crawling on that one thing, like hanging from the window. Um, but I've seen them like one up there, and then the other three are on the bottom with their arms up, like they're trying to catch them or cheer them on. I'm not sure. But there's like always something going on in there. It's so funny. It's really cute. Yes. They're and they're I've worked with another spider crab that um if she didn't like the food that you gave her, she would like push it away and kind of like shove her head to the side, and like they're very sassy. A diva spider. They're divas, but also not not the smartest. Good for them.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Yeah, honestly, respect. Yeah. That's amazing. I I love that. Um, what about the other uh animals?

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Do we still have those fish with them? We don't currently have any fish with them. We have in the past. Um, they can live with fish. Uh, you have to be a little bit specific on what's in there because it has to be a balance between it's not small enough for them to get, but also not so big that it's gonna bother them. Um we used to have what's called a cow cod in there. Uh we moved him out just because he was getting a little aggressive with feeding. Um he was stealing food directly from the spider crabs like cans and they just didn't defend themselves. So um we would like to add some more fish in there. That's our goal eventually. Um, but we would love to make it a little bit more uh Japanese specific since they are. Uh but we do have what's called matrinity anemones in there. Um they're kind of all over the Rockworth or Plumus anemones. Beautiful. Yeah. Um, it's pretty funny because I learned recently there's a group of crabs uh called decorator crabs, um, and they usually will put things on their shells to kind of blend in. And I didn't know that spider crabs are actually kind of considered one, um, which makes sense because every once in a while you'll find these giant anemones stuck to the back of the crabs, and you're like, how are you so slow that an anemone got on you? But I think that's just a thing they do. So every once in a while you just see crabs with like one or two giant white anemones just on their backs just to make themselves look a little prettier, you know?

SPEAKER_03 39:49

Gorgeous. Yeah, they're really pretty. It's probably yellow pink. It's probably yellow pink. I know one thing about yellow pink, it's that he loves the anemones. He does love the anatomies. That's really cute. I wonder if they put them on or if they like line up and let the anemone like fall on.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

You know, sometimes so every once in a while, the anemones will like detach and that's how they move around. And so you'll find them on the uh floor of the exhibit. And so I don't know if it just like they happen to be in the right place at the right time, or if they're specifically I haven't specifically seen them like pick it up and put it on there, but it does happen.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Maybe they prank each other by putting it on something like that.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

I would love for that to be true.

SPEAKER_03 40:30

Like more beautiful, just like three anemones.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Yes, they're like I look prettier than you.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

It's like angel wings. Yeah, it would be really nice, especially when you see those anemones, you will understand. Absolutely. That's cool. A lot of good crap that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

That's amazing. Well, we have some questions from social media. Um, the first one is how do they blink or if they blink?

SPEAKER_01 40:52

So I feel like I don't have a specific answer. I know that they their eye stalks, like they move them, so like they're moving all the time. If you are get too close, they'll like pull them in and they're very like expressive. Like they will like you can see, like, oh no, they're mad. Um, but I don't know the actual mechanism of how. I'm gonna be honest, I don't know how humans blink. So they just do it. They just do it. Yeah. So funny.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

Do they do it at a frequency if they're not being disturbed? Like, will they pull their eyes in? Not that I've seen. So maybe it's not blinking, maybe it's like protecting.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yeah, I feel like it's more protection. Huh.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

I think that's a soft part of me. I gotta suck. I gotta remove that.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Yeah, like I feel like it's usually like when you come towards them with like a little brush and then they're like, No, do not scrub my eye.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

To be fair, if you put a toothbrush on my eye, I would also do that. Yeah.

unknown 41:41

That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Um cool. Why do well, do Japanese spider crabs, ours are pretty bright red here, or kind of like a red to orange ombre to white yellow kind of. Um do they kind of vary in color or is that typical for the species?

SPEAKER_01 41:59

That's pretty typical. Um they might vary slightly in shape, uh, but I've never seen one that's like uh a different color. But it might be other.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Maybe an albino Japanese spider crab. A blue one. A blue one that'd be pretty pretty. Ooh, I see a good question. Go for it. Someone wants to know why do crabs walk sideways?

SPEAKER_01 42:21

So I'm pretty sure it's because it's just the easiest way. They have like a lot of legs, and they're usually, especially like spider crabs, pretty long. And so if you go forward, there's like more chance of entanglement and like tripping. Um, and I think it's just the fastest way that they can get away from the animals. That's fair.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Do lobsters walk forward backwards?

SPEAKER_01 42:42

They they walk forward, but when they're like um jetting away with their tail, then they go like backwards.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Oh, okay. That's right. I have seen that. Lobster swimming is super weird.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

It's really weird. And so when you're trying to catch them out, like you have to be like prepared for both sides because they're going to like back away from you.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

And the spider crab species is the largest. Correct. What's what about on the other end of the spectrum? Tiny crabs.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Smallest crab is called a pea crab. Oh. And it is apparently about seven to eight millimeters in width. So compare that to twelve feet. Yep. It's a little bit different.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

Such a tiny little guy. I know.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

Um, but there's like thousands of species of crabs. There's like over 4,000 species. So they have evolved. They're everywhere. They're everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

There used to be these little tiny sand crabs that I would always run into when I was in Hawaii and on the beach. And some of them were just minuscule. They must have been baby crabs, I'm guessing. But you would just see them everywhere, and they would range from like maybe three inches across to like just the tiniest, like a centimeter. And I remember always really liking those crabs. And then there was some scary, really big, like sort of dark brown crabs, and I was like, These are gonna pinch me.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yes, we were talking about it earlier. It's like you hear people turn the corner and look at the spider crabs and they're like, uh. And then you have fear people be like, oh, those look delicious. Those are beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

No, it's never beautiful. It's either scary, delicious, or ew. Those are like the three I always hear. Or cool.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

Are the ones that people eat their legs sometimes? I think that's usually king crabs. Yeah, king crabs. Stop trying to eat our crabs. You don't even eat them. You don't even go here. I think for crab.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Yeah. The spider crabs, I'm not sure about their market like things since they're only found in Japan. And I believe there is like some restrictions on when you can get them. Um they also live like very deep down. So it's a little bit harder to get.

SPEAKER_03 44:39

All that the spider crabs eat is dead whales.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

So basically, you do want to eat that.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

Well, I feel like spider crabs too. They they it doesn't seem like they have a lot of meat on them.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

They're pretty like they're all legged. Yeah, they're but they're not like yeah, they're not like they're not beef beefy legs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

You don't have beef legs. You have true crab legs. That's so funny. So many questions answered about crabs. Truly.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

And some new questions formed that I didn't even know that I had. Someone wants to know do crabs rave?

SPEAKER_01 45:16

I mean, I you know, I can't give a definitive answer on this because I'm telling you, they make weird pow-wows.

SPEAKER_03 45:25

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

And so I don't know what's going on. That could be their form of a rave. It's possible. Like they always got their arms up and then they're partying. They might be partying. I wouldn't doubt it. If someone was going to, it would be our spider girl.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Yeah. They seem like party animals at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Who knows what they do at night?

SPEAKER_03 45:41

How many do we have? Four?

SPEAKER_01 45:42

We have four currently.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Four bachelors. Raven all night. I love that for them. I love it. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

Well, cool. Thank you, Melissa, for coming on. That was so cool. Yeah, thank you guys. It was awesome.