Do blue crabs take care of their young?

Answer 1

Depending on the size of the female crab, thousands of eggs are laid and deposited with the aid of the gill grooming appendages on her pleopods along the left side of her abdomen.

She will carry her eggs as they mature for approximately 1 month during which time the eggs will change from brick red to a dark gray in color as the embryos deplete their yolk supply. The female will hatch her eggs in the ocean by passing clusters of eggs from her pleopods using her gill grooming appendages to her maxillipeds and forming clusters that are then passed to the tip of the claws and flung out to sea.

The eggs immediately burst upon contact with salt water and the new larval hatchlings referred to at this stage as zoeae float amongst the plankton. Each zoea will pass through 4-6 different stages lasting somewhere between 40-60 days until it eventually metamorphosis's into a megalopa which looks like a combination between a hermit crab and lobster. At the end of this stage which is thought to last about a month, the larva will find its first mollusk shell and begin to spend longer periods out of the water until eventually the megalopa buries to molt and resurfaces as a juvenile crab now fully able to survive on land. At this point, the tiny hermit crab's modified gills have adapted to breathe air and if submerged indefinitely in water, will drown.

(citation: hermitcrabpatch.com)

Answer 2

A blue crab does not take care of the babies. But it does take care of its eggs. The female extrudes the fertilized eggs into a cohesive mass called a sponge, which she carries under her abdomen until they hatch as larvae. The larvae drift away in the water and she may never see them again, particularly because very few survive and she herself soon dies.

Answer 3

No the female hermie throws her eggs into the ocean, where they develop, find a shell, get out of water, and never can breath underwater again.

Answer 4

No they do not take care of their young , They only take care of their eggs

Answer 5

horse shoe crabs lay their eggs and go back into the ocean. the eggs take 28-30 days to hatch and have many predators in till maturity (ages of 10-12 years old)