Recently one of the British aquariums,located in the city of Weymouth, posted on his website the largest crab in the world. This move caused a lot of excitement, thanks to which the leadership of this institution was able to make good money. However, soon a fierce controversy broke out over the network as to whether or not there were such hulks in the world, or it was just another deception.
All crabs belong to the class of crustaceans.You can meet them in all parts of the globe, with the exception of the Arctic and Antarctic. All representatives of this species have five pairs of paws, while one of them ends with sharp claws. The size of a crab depends largely on what kind of crab it belongs to. So, the biggest crab in the world has claws more than 3.5 meters in length, and the smallest and was no more than 2 cm wide.
By the way, to date, scientists have discoveredmore than four hundred species of these animals, living both in water and on land. And the researchers are sure: this is not all representatives of a huge family. Therefore, it is quite possible that soon brave adventurers will find another kind of crabs, which can exceed in size all their relatives.
But as long as this does not happen, let's look at the inhabitants of the seas already known to science. Let's find out which one deserves the title "The world's largest crab".
The name of this species of crustaceans speaks for itselfyourself. True, for the Russian people, its more common name is the brown crab. It inhabits the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean, and some of its representatives can be found even in the Mediterranean. Has an oval body shape and a pair of claws of medium size. The shell is in most cases painted brown or reddish brown.
On average, adult individuals grow to 25 cm inlength, which makes them a good contender for the title of the largest crab of the planet. Thus their weight can fluctuate within the limits of 3-3,5 kgs. However, science knows cases when a large land crab has grown to a much larger size.
This kind though and it is similar to the relatives, but,according to researches by the scientist, his genetic trace is much closer to hermit crabs. And yet for a long time it was accepted that he was the largest crab in the world. This opinion was due to the fact that in the network to the fishermen many giants of this species got, later they became living examples of their remarkable sizes.
For example, it is known that sea hunterscaught Kamchatka crabs, whose weight reached 10 kilograms. True, such cases are very rare today. Thus, most adults stop growing, reaching 20-25 cm in width of the cephalothorax. Thus, their weight varies within 5-7 kilograms. And then, similar sizes are inherent only in males, since females are less than about 2-3 times.
To date, the title of the winner is listed asJapanese crab spider. The dimensions of this species are truly amazing in their scale. Just imagine: if you put this giant on a flat surface, then the length from the end of one claw to the end of the other will be about 3.5-4 meters.
В среднем же лапы японского краба-паука достигают 40-50 cm in length. And its weight varies between 15-20 kg. Thus, we can safely say that this species is the winner by the number of giant individuals.
As stated earlier, the world's largest crab, according to the owners of the aquarium, lives in the city of Weymouth. However, how did he get there and is he really an absolute record holder?
It all began with the fact that the family caught the fishermennear the coast of Australia's huge royal crab. Its weight was about 7 kilograms, and the length of the shell was 38 centimeters. Thus, it was one of the largest crabs caught in the last decade.
После громадного обитателя морей выкупил famous aquarium. And thanks to his advertising, he became the most famous crab on the planet. True, it can not be said with certainty that this is the largest representative of crustaceans caught by humans. He's the only one who managed to become a real star.
