Blue Swimmer Crab (Portunus pelagicus) Photographs and Information

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Scientific Name	Portunus pelagicus
Location	Australia wide
Season	Available all year
Size	500g
Australian Species Code	00 702003
Taste, Texture	Delicate, fishy taste. Fine texture.

Information about Blue Swimmer Crab (Portunus pelagicus):

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

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.