The Answer for the April 13 Mystery Is…..

If you guessed Fiddler Crab, you are correct.

Did you know:

• Male Fiddler Crabs have one large claw and one small claw
• Female Fiddler Crabs are smaller and have two small claws
• The largest fiddler crabs only reach a mature size of about 2 inches across their body.
• Fiddler crabs play a vital role in salt-marsh ecology because their feeding and burrowing helps keep marshes clean and helps them to grow. They are natural aerators so to speak. They feed by sifting through the sand and mud for algae, bacteria, and decaying vegetation, Leave behind little balls of “clean” mud/sand near the burrow opening.
• Fiddler crabs also have gills, like a fish, so they can live underwater. But they have a (basic)primitive lung that lets them breath on land, too.
• Fiddler Crabs live in individual burrows within a colony.
• When the tide rolls in, they plug the burrow hole with mud (kind of like closing the front door) so the water can’t get in, once the tide goes out, fiddler crabs will open the mud plug and come out for a meal!
• They are called Fiddler Crabs because when a males feed, the back-and-forth movement of its small claw (from the ground to its mouth) near its large claw resembles the motion moving a bow across a fiddle.