Where does the blue crab live?
Throughout the course of their lives, blue crabs use all habitats in the Bay. Their distribution varies with age, sex and season. • Blue crabs tend to be abundant in shallow-water areas during warm weather, while in winter they are plentiful in the Bay’s deeper portions. • Males range farther up into the fresher waters of the Bay and its rivers than females, who congregate in saltier waters. • Blue crabs are bottom-dwellers, using bay grass beds as a source of food, nursery habitat for young and shelter during mating and molting. What does the blue crab eat? Blue crabs are omnivores and will feed on nearly anything they can find, including: • Bivalves, such as clams and oysters • Crustaceans • Dead fish • Bristle worms • Plant and animal detritus • Juvenile and soft-shelled blue crabs 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
