INDEX: Crab Merchandising Display Fixtures

INDEX:
Crab Merchandising Display Fixtures

Crab Merchandising Display Fixtures

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This Crab Merchandising Display Fixtures index page aggregates links
to all posts and photos of retail merchandising, display, and outfitting
as well as deep Background courtesy of Wikipedia.

BACKSTORY: Crabs are decapod crustaceans, either the Brachyura (the “true crabs”) or various groups within the closely related Anomura (hermit crabs and allies), characterised by having a heavily armoured shell, their tail segments concealed under the body, the ability to run sideways, and the habit of hiding in rocky crevices. They do not form a single natural group or clade, but have convergently evolved multiple times from the ancestral decapod body plan through carcinisation, the process of creating this set of characteristics. As a group, they are thus polyphyletic, meaning they have multiple evolutionary origins.

Crabs vary in size from the pea crab, a few millimeters wide, to the Japanese spider crab, with a leg span up to 4 m (13 ft). Many crabs are free-living marine omnivores; others are specialist herbivores or carnivores, while some are parasitic. A substantial number of species are adapted to freshwater or other non-marine habitats.

Crabs make up about 20% of the marine crustaceans that are caught or farmed for human consumption. In British cuisine, dressed crab is a traditional seafood meal, while in Goa and Mozambique, crab curry is a typical dish. Crabs feature in Greek and Malay mythology, and as the astrological sign Cancer. They have appeared in art in media including pottery, paintings, blouse panels, and book illustrations. Hermit crabs are often kept in aquariums and as pets. A popular meme jokes that everything will evolve into crabs, based inaccurately on the genuine evolutionary trend within the decapods.

Crabs are not a single taxonomic group.^[1] Instead, alongside the Brachyura or true crabs, are multiple groups of the Anomura that are called crabs, including the hermit crabs, mole crabs, king crabs, and porcelain crabs.^[2] A distantly-related group of arthropods, the horseshoe crabs, with an armoured carapace but a quite different body plan, is a member of the Chelicerata, the group that includes the spiders and scorpions.^[3] The crab body form and associated behaviour have arisen independently at different times in multiple groups of decapod crustaceans.

Horseshoe crabs (Xiphosura) are an ancient group, known from the late Ordovician of Canada, around 445 million years ago.^[9] Their bodies are divided into an anterior prosoma (fused head and thorax) and a posterior opisthosoma, or abdomen. The upper surface of the prosoma is covered by a semicircular carapace (top part of the shell), while the underside bears five pairs of walking legs and a pair of pincer-like chelicerae. The mouth is on the underside of the prosoma, between the bases of the walking legs.^[10]

Crabs vary in size from the pea crab, a few millimeters wide,^[21] to the Japanese spider crab, with a leg span up to 4 m (13 ft).^[22] The coconut crab is the largest terrestrial arthropod, and indeed the largest extant terrestrial invertebrate, at up to 40 cm (16 in) long and weighing up to 4.1 kg (9 lb).^[19]

Many crabs are free-living marine omnivores, feeding on a mixture of algae, small animals such as molluscs, polychaete worms, other crustaceans, and detritus.^[23] Others are more specialised: the mottled crab Grapsus albolineatus, for example, is herbivorous, feeding mainly on algae and preferring the more nutritious filamentous algae to leafy (foliose) algae,^[24] while the yellow moon crab Ashtoret lunaris is carnivorous.^[25] The porcelain crabs are plankton feeders, filtering their prey from seawater using long feathery bristles on their mouthparts.^[26] The tiny soft-bodied oyster crab is a kleptoparasite of oysters, living inside the host’s shell and eating its food.^[27]

The tufted ghost crab Ocypode cursor is semi-terrestrial, consuming terrestrial animals such as insects.^[23] Other species, including the pea crabs (Pinnotheridae), are parasitic, living inside hosts such as bivalve molluscs.^[21] The tree crab or Caribbean hermit crabis terrestrial as an adult,^[28] only returning to the ocean to spawn.^[29] It feeds on plants and by scavenging,^[30] and like other hermit crabs, takes over a mollusc shell for protection, breathing air with a lung.^[28] Some 1,300 species of crabs in 8 families are adapted to freshwater.^[31] Christmas Island red crabs make an annual mass migration to the sea to lay their eggs.^[32]

Crabs make up some 20% of all marine crustaceans caught, farmed, and consumed worldwide, amounting to 1.5 million tonnes annually. One species, the Asian blue crab Portunus trituberculatus, accounts for one-fifth of that total. Other commercially important taxa include Portunus pelagicus, several species in the genus Chionoecetes, the blue crab (Callinectes sapidus), Charybdis spp., Cancer pagurus, the Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister), and Scylla serrata, each of which yields more than 20,000 tonnes annually.^[40]

In Western Europe, much of the crab meat is from the brown crab Cancer pagurus, noted for its sweet, delicate flavour. The United Kingdom hosts significant fisheries of this species, with major operations in Scotland and the South West of England.^[41]Dressed crab is a traditional seafood meal in British cuisine made of the meat of the brown crab served in its own shell.^[42]

In North America, there are commercial fisheries for the blue crab Callinectes sapidusalong the Atlantic coast of the United States, and in the Gulf of Mexico. The fishery was centered on the Chesapeake Bay, but other places are increasing in importance.^[43]Crab cakes are traditionally made from Chesapeake Bay crabs.^[44]^[45]

In Goa and Mozambique, crab curry is a typical dish, flavoured with chilis, garlic, coconut, and spices.^[46]

In Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, both the meat and the eggs of the snow crab are served as sushi in wintertime. The male is known as kano-gani, the female as kobako-gani. The short fishing season for the females makes kobako-gani sushi a rare delicacy.^[47] (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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