Crabby Visitors

These red crabs have been coming into the bay off and on over the past few months.

Here is Z checking out the visitors from the dock. He also brought one onto the boat earlier that day.

From what we learned online (Wikipedia): "Pleuroncodes planipes, sometimes called the pelagic red crab (or simply "red crab"), tuna crab or langostilla, is a species of squat lobster from the eastern Pacific Ocean. Pleuroncodes planipes lives on the continental shelf west of Mexico, and is unusual among members of the Galatheidae in that it lives in shallow water. It is usually found only south-west of San Diego, but in warmer years, its range may extend northwards into California.This is usually indicative of an El Niño event."

The kids enjoyed watching them swim around the marina and after a few attempts, Z caught one so we could get a better look. Science and Geography lesson for the day, boom!