How does the blue crab reproduce?
Blue crabs mate from May through October in the brackish waters of the middle Bay. • Before mating, a male “cradles” a soft-shelled female in its legs and carries her for several days while searching for a protected area for her final molt. Mating takes place after the female molts. • After mating, the male resumes cradling the female for several more days until her shell hardens. • The male departs to search for another mate and the female migrates to the saltier lower Bay to spawn. • The female develops an external orange egg mass, or sponge, beneath her apron. The egg mass may contain between 750,000 and two million eggs. • Over the next two weeks, the egg mass darkens as the developing larvae consume the orange yolk. • In about two weeks the female releases the larvae, called zoea, into the high-salinity waters near the mouth of the Bay. • Currents transport the planktonic zoea to the ocean, where they molt several times to progressively larger stages. Winds eventually carry the zo
