No matter what kind of animal, as long as it is too large to be acceptable, it will bring fear to people.
Spiders are the creatures that many people fear the most, and if spiders have a larger body size than a human, it is simply a top nightmare.
In the southeastern seas of Japan, there is such a creature: it looks like a spider, with an amazing size and a small body, but 10 legs are very long, the length is higher than a person, and it can reach 4.2 meters after stretching.
But thankfully, this creature is not a spider, but a crab that looks like a spider, is it not so scary in an instant?
If you're thinking about how to eat it at this point, don't worry, find out what kind of creature it is!
This amazingly shaped large crab is called the giant crab, because it lives on the bottom of the deep sea in Japan and resembles a spider, and is also known as the "Japanese spider crab".
Huge size, like an alien creature
The spider crab is the largest surviving crustacean in the world, weighing about 20 kilograms, and although its body is only the size of a basketball, it has its legs outstretched and can reach a length of 4.2 meters.
This means that you are standing on its side, and the crab can completely override your height, which makes it the largest crab in the world.
Like other crabs, spider crabs have hard exoskeletons, an advantage that protects it from large predators such as octopuses.
With its shell, it can also blend into the rocky seabed, decorating its shell with sponges and other animals to provide itself with a perfect camouflage.
Don't look at the spider crabs grow up so powerful, the newborn spider crabs are almost microscopic, the small spider crabs are like plankton, small and primitive, almost invisible to them.
After floating for about 70 days, it gradually took on the shape of a crab. As it grows, the crab shell falls off, and each change of shell means that it will be larger than before.
Some studies believe that the Japanese spider crab can survive for at least a century, and it has been growing all its life, that is, the longer it lives, the larger it grows, and it is fully capable of growing to an incredible size, but it has not yet been discovered.
As of now, the spider crab that was found to have lived the longest was only 40 years old.
If you look closely at the spider crab, you will find that its legs are envied by everyone to be thin and long, and at first glance the legs are not very thick, very fragile, in fact, it is easy to break. This will give many people the illusion that this crab is very good to bully.
But in fact, the spider crab carries another name, "killer crab".
The legs are thin but muscular, they do not hunt often, but they have the advantage of leg length, they are fast when they need to move, and they can easily hunt smaller animals; the claws are also very strong, and they can easily pry open clams and other hard creatures and grab the delicious parts of them and eat them.
This is true of creatures with shells, let alone humans?
When the crab was first discovered, the researchers who documented it noticed that it would cause serious harm to humans, and in fact it did.
In Japan, there are rumors of spider crabs injuring people.
It is rumored that when Japanese fishermen accidentally approach this crab, they will first wrap their 8 slender claws around the human body, and the remaining 2 large pliers are used to attack humans, and constantly drag the human body into the deep sea until the human body dies, and then begin to enjoy food.
So the name of "killer crab" did not go away.
However, as a party to the Japanese spider crab, this name is indeed a bit unjust.
Unexpectedly, the Japanese spider crab is a gentle giant creature.
Looking like a spider, the size of the body, coupled with various legends, let the spider crab bear the name of "killer crab", but in any case, it is a crab after all, and in reality, it is very gentle, even a little shy.
The nickname "Killer Crab" is not worthy of the name
First of all, the origin of the name "killer crab" is similar to the origin of the killer whale nickname "killer whale".
Killer whales have hardly been eaten in the wild, but because of their high hunting skills and the top predators in the ocean, they are named "Killer Whale", which is translated as killer whale after arriving in China.
Spider crabs have a similar experience.
Unlike many giant creatures, the spider crab, while capable of hunting megamots, prefers to eat smaller creatures such as algae, kelp, mollusks, slow-moving invertebrates, and the carcasses of any creature that happens to float nearby.
And in these foods, they prefer to eat carrion, that is, they prefer to remove dead meat than hunting, so they have the English common name of "Dead Man Crab", which is translated as ghoul crab when it reaches China, and becomes "killer crab" when it is passed down.
Second, spider crabs prefer to live in the deep sea.
The living area of spider crabs and human life are almost at no intersection, they live on the seabed of 150-300 meters all year round, and only live in the deep sea near Japan.
During the mating season, the crab ventures into the diving area, about 50 meters above the surface.
So don't worry, many people will hardly encounter this behemoth for the rest of their lives.
In general, the Japanese spider crab is an indisputable animal that does not actively provoke humans or eat people.
And the legend of eating people may have something to do with its fondness to eat carrion.
Ancient legend tells the story of spider crabs that drag sailors outside their boats and eat them in the depths of the ocean.
It is very likely that ancient sailors were thrown into the sea after their deaths, and spider crabs just happened to encounter such carrion, and were seen while they were enjoying it, misrepresented to kill humans.
Even the largest crab is also a crab, which is a delicacy that humans rush to buy.
Unfortunately, the biggest predators of this marine life are us humans.
Spider crabs live in the depths of the ocean, so they are difficult to catch, but this does not affect humans from eating this delicacy.
In Japan and other Asian countries, there are foods about spider crabs that sell well in restaurants.
In the past, fishermen would pick the spring breeding season in order to hunt crabs, and the large spider crabs would swim to the shallow waters to mate, and people could catch them as long as they stayed here, and then sell them to tourists or restaurants.
It was not until the spring ban was issued that this frenzied fishing practice stopped.
Those who have had the opportunity to taste this crab believe that this crab can become an addictive delicacy by boiling it in water and squeezing a little lemon.
It is also this kind of food temptation, the spider crab with a hard shell, huge body, equipped with double claws is still reduced to a plate food, and the number is greatly reduced.
Since spider crabs live on the ocean floor all year round, we have no way of knowing exactly how many of them there are.
Although they lay millions of eggs a year and live long, fishermen's fishing reports in recent years say spider crabs are catching fewer and fewer.
This means that spider crab populations are dwindling and may already be endangered.