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Fish & Other Seafood

Beche De Mer
(Sea Cucumber)

Other common names include sand crab, blue manna crab, blue crab, swimming crab and sandy crab.

Blue Swimmer Crabs are swimming crabs and they have their last pair of legs modified as swimming paddles.  Their carapace is rough in texture.  It is very broad and has a prominent projection on each side.  The crabs claws are long and slender.  Blue Swimmer Crabs vary in colour from brown through blue to purple with pale mottling.

Blue Swimmer Crabs are widely distributed throughout the Indo-West Pacific region from east Africa to Japan, Tahiti and northern New Zealand.  They are also present in the Mediterranean Sea.  In Australia, Blue Swimmer Crabs inhabit coastal waters from the south coast of New South Wales, up and around to Perth in Western Australia.

They live in a wide range of inshore and continental shelf areas, including sandy, muddy or algal and seagrass habitats from the intertidal zone to at least 50 metres in depth.  They move to deeper water as they age and in response to changes in water temperature and inshore salinity.

Blue Swimmer crabs are active swimmers, but when they are inactive they usually bury themselves in the bottom sediment, leaving only their eyes, antennae and gill chamber opening exposed.

Blue Swimmer Crabs form breeding pairs and mating takes place during the late summer (January to March) moult of the females.  Mature males moult some weeks before the maturing females and each carries a female clasped beneath him for 4 to 10 days before she moults.  Mating occurs immediately after the female has moulted and when her shell is still soft. 

Female crabs spawn up to 2 million eggs per batch.  Blue Swimmer crab eggs and larvae are planktonic.  The eggs hatch after about 15 days at 24°C water temperature.  During the larval stage, the crabs may drift as far as 80 kilometres out to sea before returning to inshore waters to settle.

Inshore areas of southern Queensland account for approximately half of the commercial catch in Australia.  Other important commercial catch areas are the New South Wales coast, Spencer Gulf in South Australia, Cockburn Sound near Fremantle and the Swan-Avon River near Perth in Western Australia. Blue Swimmer Crabs form a significant part of the bycatch of many prawn trawlers.

Most of the catch is marketed in Australia, although there is a small export market.

There has been successful attempts at culturing Blue Swimmer Crabs in Australia.  The species is cultured in Japan and other Asian countries.

Minimum size applies in all states.  Females in berry (with eggs) are protected in New South Wales and all females are protected in Queensland and Western Australia.

Male and female crab identification:

Crab Photos:

Blue Swimmer Claw Meat	Blue Swimmer Crab Meat	Blue Swimmer Crab Meat

[CRAB RECIPES]

Recipes using Crab and Crabmeat from How To Cook Fish

Pasteurized Crabmeat from Toba Surimi Industries Indonesia

Canned Crabmeat from PT Makmur Hasil Bahari

Exporters of Crab  |  Importers of Crab  |  Processors of Crab  |  Wholesale Suppliers of Crab  |  Seafood Agents for Crab

Exporters of Blue Crab  |  Importers of Blue Crab  |  Processors of Blue Crab  | Wholesale Suppliers of Blue Crab  |  Agents for Blue Crab