Monday, June 20, 2005

An Easy Way To Always Find A Date

The Chesapeake Bay is famous for its blue crab population. The little critters get their name from their claws, which in the case of the males, have a blue tinge to them. The female crabs of the species, however, have a reddish hue to their claws.

And no, I don't know why they're not called "red crabs." I'm not the one who named the things, so I'm washing my hands of the whole sexist business. But whatever the reasons, it does make it easy to tell the boy crabs from the girl ones.

So imagine the shock on waterman Robbie Watson's face when he dumped his trap and found a crab with one blue claw AND one red claw!

Watson decided to check the underside of the crab's shell. If it were a male, it would have a pattern that resembles the Washington Monument. But if it were female, the pattern would resemble the Capitol dome.

As it turned out, this particular speciman had a wavy pattern, which was roughly a cross between the two normal ones.

According to scientists, the crab is an extremely rare find known as a "bilateral gynandromorph," or a cross between both sexes. It's half male and female, all in the same body.

Hmmmm.... Kinda sounds like a crustecean version of Michael Jackson.

0 thoughtful ramblings: