Getting Through Life as a Crab

Crabs, like all animals, go through many stages of development on their inexorable journey toward death. At the beginning much like us mammals, crabs are pathetic, weak and squishy.

They’re unable with any real direction to control how they move about in the water, and the tremendous currents and whirling forces can send them swooshing into the farthest flung parts of the sea.

If they’re lucky enough to survive into adulthood and avoid the gaping maws of passing whales - then they can become large enough that their shells harden up and they grow so large that they are no longer suspended in the water column but sink to the seabed.

Of course there are plenty of dangers there too, and the life of a crab on the ocean floor is never easy - they must continually move between feeding and hiding, hiding and feeding for pretty much the rest of their life. There isn’t a great deal of chill in the life of these animals - but with luck and a fundamental change in human attitude toward the natural world, maybe they’ve got a chance.