Crabs
They are 10-legged creatures that walk slanting. There
are 5,000 different species of crabs. Hermit crabs which
don't have a very hard shell and use other animals' old
shells for defense are a different species of crabs and
there are about 500 species of
hermit crabs.
The largest Crabs:
The largest crab is the Japanese Spider crab (Macrocheira
kaempferi), which lives in the North Pacific Ocean;
its leg width is 12 ft (3.7 m). The biggest land crmab
is the Coconut crab (Birgus latro), which lives
on islands in the Pacific Ocean; it has a leg width up
to 2.5 ft (75 cm).
Food:
Some Crabs are omnivores (plant- and meat-eaters),
others are carnivores (meat-eaters), and some are
herbivores (plant-eaters).
Body:
Crabs are
invertebrates. These
crustaceans have ten jointed
legs, two of which have large, greedy claws (called
tongs or chelipeds), an exoskeleton, and an outer shell
that both protects them from predators and provides
support. They have a flattened body, two feelers
(antennae), and two eyes located at the ends of stalks.
Breathing:
Using gills, which are located in a two cavities under
the shell, marine crabs breathe undersea. Land crabs
have puffy, modified cavities that act like lungs so
that the land crabs can m
