#mitten crab

[sei-the-zatten]

[godzillabbygirl]

Icons from Animal Crossing: New Horizons

water critters cherished crustaceans • part 2 of 17

[bonzosbunker]

i recently decided that one of my most favorite fakémon that i’ve made deserves an evolution. so mittenxie now evolves into mittekiwa, another ice/fire type crab pokémon.

[mittencrabbyrose]

If Amy but crab

Mitten crabs were a meme on a community i was on. No, it makes even less sense in context. I will spare you the horrors of the chat log.

[mayorwhisper]

SO CUTE

[encyclopika]

Animal Crossing Fish - Explained #112

Brought to you by a marine biologist who says it’s time for crab...

CLICK HERE FOR THE AC FISH EXPLAINED MASTERPOST!

I did it again, guys. I missed doing an animal when it was actually available, and that’s on me. To make up for it, whether y’all want to or not, it’s time for crab. For the rest of the week, we will be covering crabs because for some reason, there are so many available starting in the fall and continue into winter. SO, without further adieu, let’s start with the Mitten Crab who went away at the end of November. (It’s also about time we did a freshwater friend).

Since we will be talking crabs for the next few days, it’d be helpful to brush up on what exactly crabs are. Crabs are part of Phylum Arthropoda, all of the animals with exoskeletons and jointed legs. Arthropods are the most numerous and diverse group of animals on Earth, and include everything from insects, to spiders, to Crustaceans, for which crabs are a part. Crustacea is also a HUGE Subphylum that includes familiar animals like crabs and shrimp to things you wouldn’t believe are related, like barnacles. Most all of the recognizable Crustaceans, like crabs, are in Class  Malacostraca; in fact, all of ACNH’s crustaceans besides the barnacle hail from this Class. From there, crabs fall under the Order Decapoda, those Crustaceans with ten legs (Deca- = 10; -poda = foot). The infraorder Brachyura contain the true crabs, and I gotta tell ya, one of the crabs this week is a goddamn imposter. Not the mitten crab, though. This is the Chinese Mitten Crab (Eriocheir sinensis), a true crab boi.

By Christian Fischer, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=342346

It’s also called the Shanghai hairy crab because of its fuzzy claws. The hair-like stuff that grows on their claws is called setae. They’re native to China, as is obvious from their other common name, as well as Korea. In both places, mitten crabs are eaten as part of Shanghai and Eastern Chinese cuisine. However, they can survive in very polluted areas where they take up heavy metals like mercury, so fishing for them needs to be regulated to keep people safe. 

Nevertheless, they are considered an autumn delicacy, which may explain why they are only available during autumn on your island. In real life, mitten crabs live their lives in rivers and go into the brackish water of estuaries (where sea and river meet, often in wetlands and naturally protected bays) or the sea, to breed. That usually happens in the autumn as well, so it’s my thought that the mitten crabs on your island are breeding adults making their way to your river mouths. It’s difficult to say where your island rivers stop being inter-tidal, so I love how ACNH puts the Mitten Crab in the estuary section of the flowing river tank in the museum with our other estuarine friends, like the sturgeon and horseshoe crab!

And there you have it! Fascinating stuff, no?

[hootcrossing]

[green-eyed-oriole]

🧤🦀