The Blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, 1896, is the most commercially important crustacean harvested in its native waters, the Chesapeake Bay.

The State Crustacean of Maryland, the blue crab has a life span of 2 to 3 years typically. It has a bad temper and will fight anything regardless of size when it feels threatned. The blue crab 'walks' sideways using its 6 legs giving it a somewhat clumsy appearance. In the water, however, it is a very fast swimmer.


Blue Crabs have a diet consisting mostly of invertebrates. The smallest crabs eat zooplankton and minute freshwater and marine crustaceans, while the rest of the blue crabs prefer soft-shelled clams, other blue crabs, dead fish, snails, eelgrass, worms, sea lettuce, oysters, fish and vegetation.

In the post-larval and juvenile stages crabs provide food for eel and such fish as spot, drum, Atlantic croaker, striped bass (rockfish), sea trout and catfish.

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The blue crab can also be found from Nova Scotia to Uruguay and from the Baltic Sea to France. They were found in the Black Sea in 1967; in Japanese waters in 1974. They also live in the waters of Italy, Israel, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, the Adriatic Sea, Cyprus, Great Britton, Korea, Indonesia, China, Brazil. Columbia, Equador, India, Maylasia, Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela, Vietnam and the Ionian Sea.

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