Meat crabs are beach-dwelling swimming crabs that live on intertidal mudflats or sandy tidal flats. They like to stay in tidal flats, puddles and rock crevices. They mostly live in burrows during the day and forage for food at night.

Meat crabs have a very mixed diet, mainly animal foods. The food composition is mainly composed of molluscs and small crustaceans. The shell edges of bivalves, hinge fragments, gastropod limbs, incomplete screw shafts, and residual limbs and heads of square crabs often appear in the stomach contents. Breastplate fragments.

Meat crabs are ferocious and carnivorous, and their staple food is fish, shrimp and shellfish. The meat is delicious and nutritious, and the body produces a red or yellow paste. This kind of crab is called "paste crab" in southern China and is also known as "sea ginseng". It is abundant in warm shallow seas and is mainly distributed in the coastal areas of Zhejiang, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and Taiwan, especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.