Crabs.. Every morning they invade the shore areas of Cuba's Bay of Pigs.
Yellow crabs the size of baseballs.
Red crabs similar in size to the yellow ones.
These crabs were all over the roofed walkway leading into the restaurant at the resort we stayed overnight in at Playa Larga.
Crab Massacre on the Bay of PigsHoly crunch Batman. Every morning the crabs try to cross the road to get to the other side, obviously, but for what reason? No se. This occurs over a 20-30 km stretch of road along the east side of the Bay of Pigs in Southern Cuba. By mid afternoon, all that is left of the carnage is a roadway of crushed and mauled carcasses (for those crab eating lovers I didn't take any photos of the after results). The locals and touristos can't avoid these guys, so in their travels they drive right over them. We must have "terminated" hundreds if not thousands. The local turkey vultures are extremely healthy, and in one instance they were bold and aggressive as a group of 5 or 6 chowing down in the middle of the road refused to move. We slowed down to a crawl and got to within 2 meters of them before they begrudgingly flew off. If we had continued driving at the speed we were at, we not only would we have continued to crush crabs, we would have been able to stencil a few buzzards on the front of the car.
4 comments:
Are they edible?
If they all invade in the morning, when do they return to the sea?
They are edible. From my vantage point, driving over them, I thought they were going to the sea as we massacred them, so I'm thinking these were crabs that bred on land and then were going to the sea. I suppose that sometime in the year there's a reverse migration as they come from the see to lay eggs. Just guessing ...
Here's a link sent to me by Doc Bain with a great photo and explanation about the crabs at the Bay of Pigs: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/cuba-wild-island-of-the-caribbean/cuban-crab-invasion/1247/
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