Loretta banner, age 12, of Willingsboro, N.J. for her question:
HOW LARGE IS THE KING CRAB?
The king crab is a large sea animal with a shell shaped like a horse's hoof. It may grow to be nearly two feet long, including a long sharp spine that sticks up from the end of the abdomen.
The king crab must not be confused with the Alaskan king crab, or Japanese crab as it is sometimes called. The Alaska king crab is a good tasting crab that is caught by both American and Japanese fishermen. It is one of the largest crabs and its 12 pound body supplies much meat.
The king crab is related to spiders and scorpions, but its exact classification is unsettled. Although it is an anthropod, it is not a true crab.
The king crab lives along the Atlantic shores from Maine to the West Indies and Yucatan, and the Pacific shores from Japan down the China coast, through Indonesia. It is actually one of the last remaining members of a large group of animals that lived in prehistoric times.
The king crab's body has two segments. It has a large hoof shapes head and thorax and a smaller abdomen or hind body. The long spine is used as a weapon of defense.
On the upper surface of the head lie a pair .of large compound eyes and two small simple eyes. The mouth is on the center of the lower surface. The king crab has six pairs of legs. The legs end in spines which are used to grasp and tear food and prey.
The abdomen bears six pairs of swimming organs. The first pair are the openings of the egg ducts. The other five pairs bear numerous flat gill books, or leaflike gills, through which the king crab breathes.
People who live in the eastern United States sometimes feed the king crab to their chickens and pigs. The king crab has also been used as a garden fertilizer, but not as human food.
The king crab usually stays under 12 to 36 feet of water. It crawls up on the beaches in early summer to lay its eggs where the high tide will just wash over them.
On the sea bottom, the king crab plows through the mud and sand in search of food. It scoops with its legs and pushes with its spike tail, seeking sea worms and small mollusks. It uses the spines on its legs to tear the food into small bits.
At times the king crab has been an enemy of the oyster.
Scientists call the king crab a living fossil. Although most of the prehistoric animals have died out, the king crab is one of the few survivors. These creatures give scientists an opportunity to study the bodies and habits of living animals that closely resemble animals of prehistoric times.