If you break a crab's belly and find something bulging and yellowish, don't think it is crab yellow, because it is actually a parasitic creature-crab slave. Crab slave is a parasitic creature that takes crabs as its host. It is not so much a crab slave as a "slave crab", because once it is successfully parasitized by a crab slave, the crab becomes a tool for the crab slave. So, what kind of creature is a crab slave? Let's take a brief look.

crab slave

In the ocean, there is a kind of parasitic creatures, which like to live on various objects, among which barnacles are the most common. Barnacles are often parasitic on rocks in the sea or on the surface of large marine organisms. For example, the white object similar to psoriasis on whales is actually barnacles. The crab slave is actually a barnacle, because barnacles are the floorboard of all species under the vine foot in a broad sense. However, from a narrow point of view, barnacles refer to the species of Barnacles. Therefore, there are some differences between the crab slave and our common barnacles in appearance.

barnacles have hard calcareous shells and tentacles similar to those of horse teeth, while crab slaves have no shells after finding a host, and their whole bodies are soft and oval-shaped, and their body color is mainly light yellow or light brown.

Parasitism of Crab Slave

Crab Slaves belong to the family Crab Slave, which are oviparous creatures. After fertilization, the eggs of Crab Slave develop into larvae on their own, and the crab slaves of the larvae are very small and drift with the tide until they meet crabs. However, not all crab slaves live by parasitism, because parasitism is exclusive to female crab slaves, and female crab slaves only choose male crabs to parasitize. When the female crab slave in the larval state meets the crab, she will climb on the crab and slowly find a gap in the crab, usually at the joint of the leg. At this time, the crab slave larva will shed its shell once and enter the crab through the joint gap.

After that, the crab slave larvae will gradually occupy the crab's body with multiple branched tubules, and the main function of these tubules is to absorb the nutrients in the crab for its development. In this process, the female crab slave will affect the hormone secretion of the male crab, so that the abdomen of the male crab is stretched and flattened, so that the male crab looks like a female crab. In addition to the change of appearance, the parasitized male crabs will also have the ability of female crabs, that is, to take care of their eggs. After ovulation, female crabs will habitually disperse their eggs with big pliers on their heads, and the parasitic male crabs will also have this ability.

As the female crab slave larvae grow up in the crab, the nutrients in the crab are slowly absorbed by the crab slave. Finally, the crab slave's capsule comes out of the crab's abdomen and completely controls the crab. At this time, the crab is no longer a crab, and it will not grow on its own, nor will it have self-awareness. It has completely become a "puppet" of the crab slave.

At this time, the female crab slave is basically fully developed, and the male crab slave will find the female to mate completely. When mating is completed, the female crab slave will dominate the crab to find a high rock and then stand on it. The female crab slave will discharge the fertilized egg into the water by pulse. At this time, the original male crab will stretch out his tongs to stir the fertilized egg, and at this point, the crab's fate is completed. The fertilized eggs of crab slaves hatch in water, and the hatched female crab slaves once again start the journey of finding parasitic crabs.

From the whole parasitic process of the crab slave, it is somewhat similar to the parasite iron nematode of mantis. The iron nematode is swallowed into the body by mantis in the form of eggs, and then the internal organs of mantis are gradually eaten with the slow development of the iron nematode. Finally, the iron nematode after the adult will dominate mantis to come to the water and jump into the water, and the iron nematode will burst out of mantis's stomach, and the iron nematode will emerge and mantis will die.

In contrast, there is another kind of parasite in the sea, which takes fish as the host and feeds on the blood in the fish's tongue through its gills and mouth, until the fish's tongue shrinks, and it takes its place, that is, the fish louse. However, compared with the crab slave, the fish louse only replaces the tongue of the fish, which is in a state of being alive with the fish, while the crab slave will completely control the host.

Summary

Crab slave is a parasitic barnacle, which has a thin shell (larval state) before parasitization, and after parasitization, its shell fades and becomes a soft capsule. The development of crab slave from larva to adult is completed in crab. When it is fully developed, its fully developed capsule will be located in crab's abdomen. Because the crab slave's capsule is light yellow and similar to crab paste, many people will regard it as crab paste. In fact, it is just the crab slave's capsule. And because the host crab with a capsule has been occupied by crab slaves, only an empty shell remains, so even if it tastes, it tastes completely different from crabs.