What is Crab Behavioral Adaptations for
Survival?
Actually there are various reasons why crab behavioral adaptations for survival exist
since they need to survive in their natural habitat. The crabs are living in
various habitats from fully marine creature, in estuaries area, or fully land
creature. But most of the time, their adaptation is similar to one another since
they all also have similar needs. Those needs are important so they can survive
well in the nature and grow well. This might be the reason why, you notice that
the crab can grow better in controlled environment such as when they are
growing inside a crab farm. But outside the crab farm, then the situation would
be different since they do not have controlled environment thus they need to
adapt well to conquer all of the challenge in the nature.
First thing that they need to do is to find
a way to hide themselves from their predators. To do this they will have
behavior to dig the sand or mud using their claws where they can hide
themselves inside. The mud and sand are very dark, thus their predators cannot
see them when they hide inside the holes that they dig. Their body color is
another adaptation that they do since their color will work as camouflage where
they can hide within the same color area with their body color. That way, their
natural predator cannot easily detect them when they hide themselves. This
might be the reason why you cannot easily see them in their natural habitat as
they can hide very well.
Other crab
behavioral adaptations for survival that they do are to find place where
they can hunt for food better. That is why; sometimes they will go into the
intertidal area where they can hunt their food better especially when the high
tide comes. Now when they already get enough food, then they will go back to
their safe place which usually on sub tidal area where they can hide better
during the low tide times. Surely different crab species has different
preference when it comes to the place where they live. That is why; the crabs
may choose to live in different habitat thus their behavior will also different
according to the habitat where they choose to live.
Nevertheless crab is a type of creature
that can adapt very well in their environment thus they can survive well with
the change that available in the water where they live or with other natural
condition changes. This adaptation is actually beneficial for you who want to
farm this food fish as you can easily create controlled condition where the
crab can live well in that environment. Once they live inside the controlled
environment and survived, then they can grow very well. Now you can use them
for commercial usage once you are success in growing them inside your crab
farm.
Besides the natural
crab behavioral adaptations for survival, their adaptation also comes in
the physical change that they do. This physical adaptation is done so they can
survive better in their natural habitat. First physical adaptation that they do
is to protect their body with their skeleton. This is why; their skeleton lies
outside their body instead of inside like other creatures. However, when it
comes to the structure their exoskeleton is actually very similar to our
skeleton which is very rigid. Their exoskeleton is also very hard which will
then forming carapace that function to protect their internal organ and body
inside. By using their skeleton as armor, then they can protect themselves
better from their natural predators.
Other physical adaptation that you can see
from the crab is on their legs. You surely already know that they have eight
legs with two different legs. Those two different legs are actually their form of crab
behavioral adaptations for survival. Through the adaptation, they are
able to change those two legs into bigger size claws. And using those claws
they are able to defend themselves from their predators. Furthermore, they
would also able to catch their prey better by using those claws to grab the
prey. Thus this adaptation is actually very important for the crab survival
rate. The claws are actually also useful when they made with the female crab.
During the mating time, the claw will be used as a display which is a way to
attract the female crab so they would mate with the male. Sometimes the claw
will also used to fight other male crab to win the female.
Another form of adaptation that they crab
done so they can survive very well in their nature is on the way they breathe.
As you know some of the crabs are using gill to breathe thus some of the crab
that move to dry place will have special plate which allows them to stored the
water inside their body so they can breathe outside the water. Sometimes they
will even stored water inside their blood and even their bladder. But for a
fully land crab, their adaptation is very extreme as they will change the way
that they breathe completely. They do would not need water anymore since their
gill has changed function to be similar to our lungs. As you can see, there are
various crab behavioral adaptations for survival
which allows them to live better in their natural habitat.
