What Is the Difference Between Brown Crab and Bread Crab? Understanding the Differences at a Glance
China has had a unique crab-eating culture since ancient times. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, there was crab paste (xie xu); the custom of eating crab began in the Tang Dynasty, became popular in the Song Dynasty, and flourishes even more today. Today, gracing Chinese dining tables alongside native river crabs, lake crabs, and sea crabs are high-quality wild sea crabs from around the world. So what exactly is the difference between the popular brown crab and bread crab?
The difference between brown crab and bread crab
The bread crab is one type of brown crab, with the scientific name edible brown crab (Cancer pagurus), but brown crab is not only the bread crab.
The genus Cancer (brown crabs) contains eight species of crab, mainly including the Dungeness crab (Cancer magister), the edible brown crab (Cancer pagurus, the bread crab), the Jonah crab (Cancer borealis), the striped brown crab (Cancer irroratus, the peekytoe crab), the Chilean stone crab (Chilean bread crab), and three species of rock crab from North America. Among them, the Dungeness crab, bread crab, and Jonah crab can be called the three giants of the brown crabs.
An introduction to the edible brown crab
It is most often seen on sandy bottoms and eelgrass beds in the subtidal zone, and extremely large numbers of juvenile crabs can be found in the intertidal zone. It feeds mainly on mussels, and also on small crustaceans and small fish. This crab has a heavy shell. The edges of the shell are wrinkled, like pie crust, and like other crabs, the shell of the edible brown crab also serves to protect its internal organs. The edible brown crab feeds on live animals as well as their remains, and it can pry open shells with its sturdy claws. Adult crabs live in deep water, but because their shell is too heavy, they cannot swim and can only move sideways along the sea floor, and they mainly rely on smell and touch to find food. The edible brown crab lays up to 3 million eggs each year. Like most other crabs, their larvae initially float in the plankton community near the water's surface.