Cool Crustaceans

All you need to know to appreciate these underestimated and unloved creatures of the deep

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CRUSTACEAN FACTS

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• New research suggests crustaceans not only suffer pain but also remember it. Consequently, scientists say crustaceans should be treated with the same care as vertebrates.

• For every pound of shrimp trawled from the ocean, twenty pounds of other sea animals are killed and tossed back into the sea. Victims include sharks, turtles and seabirds as well as fish.

• Crabs can communicate by flapping their pincers or drumming their claws.

• ​Lobsters chew their food with 'teeth' located in their stomachs.

• Researchers discovered some crustaceans can suffer anxiety, even to the extent that feeding them antidepressants caused them to improve.

• Lobsters have an incredible sense of touch thanks to hundreds of thousands of tiny hairs that stick out from gaps in their shells.

• Lobsters 'taste' via sensory hairs on their legs that identify food.

• Crabs have large compound eyes made up of hundreds of tiny lenses.​

• Some shrimp species serve as cleaners for fish by removing bloodsucking parasites from their mouths.​

• Lobsters migrate up to 160 kilometers every year to find the perfect breeding ground for their babies.

• Some crabs are known as 'decorator crabs' because they camouflage themselves by attaching small sponges, anemones and other animals to their bodies.

• Lobsters don't appear to suffer any decline in strength or health as they age, so have the potential to live over a century and possibly indefinitely.​

• Shrimps make a variety of sounds to communicate, likely to both socialize and to intimidate other marine life.

• Many crustaceans can regenerate their claws, legs or antennae if lost in a fight or accident.

• The world's largest crab is the Japanese Spider Crab with a leg span measuring up to twelve feet across.

• Crustaceans don't want to die any more than you or I would and will try to avoid being killed.

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CRUSTACEAN VIDS

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Marine arthropods 
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Crustaceans: Armed and armored
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Crustacean reef life
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Hermit crab exchanges shell
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Facts about lobsters
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The mantis shrimp
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Shrimps keep waters fresh
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Christmas Island crab migration
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Reef life: Shrimps and cleaners
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Consider the Lobster
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The fiddler crab
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Lobsters at war
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SOCIAL MEDIA

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Crustacean Liberation
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Sea Shepherd
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Seaspiracy
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  You can find out what happens to crustaceans when we choose to eat them by clicking the
    red button below. Much of what you'll find is standard practice or considered perfectly
     humane, and though it might not be as hard to watch as abuse towards other animals
       please try to remember that it's only because they look so different from us
          - and not because they suffer any less.​
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            "I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it"
                                                                                                  - Maya Angelou

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