Crabbing off the docks never gets old for Boston Harbor Explorers in Dorchester! Once again, we used the crab traps to see which group could find the most crabs. In the beginning, we were using hot dogs as bait. The kids soon learned that crabs like to eat mussels too! Here are a few boys who were successful in finding a mussel attached to the dock. We caught many more crabs using the mussels than the hot dogs, why do you think that is?We brought up one of the traps and one of the explorers commented that one of the crabs looked really strange. It was a pregnant green crab!
You can click on the image on the right to enlarge it. Look at the crab's "belly" area and you can see the large mound of eggs. Reproductive events vary by the size of the female, but most females can produce over 150,000 eggs in one event! We made sure to take the female crab and put her back into the water gently. At the end of the day, the campers exclaimed that they caught over 155, 000 crabs! Although I wouldn't let them count the eggs in our crab count, they did find an astonishing 55 green crabs that day! Another great day in Dorchester!~Aimee
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