Little did we realize that what we were seeing was a mere sampling of what nature has to offer.

                Take, for example, those skittering little crabs. The ones we used to find along the shore, back then, were fascinating little creatures. They came in all sizes. We once saw one no bigger than the eraser on a pencil, but most of them were around the size of a quarter. We thought these were pretty big guys, although, when the water was clear we could see that there were even larger crabs living in the deep. Those guys, about the size of our half-grown feet, never seemed to come into the shallows where we could reach them. And that was fine by us, of course, as we had ourselves convinced that they had pinchers big enough to nip our toes off! Must be the biggest, most amazing crabs on earth, we figured.

                But Mother Nature had not yet begun to speak.

                The great, vast ocean is just crawling with members of the crab family, and they come in a surprising variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. We had no idea!

                Here are a few.

                Coconut Crab:

                This is guy is the world’s largest land crab with a leg span of around three feet and top weight of around 9lbs. It gets its name from its ability to crack open coconuts to eat the meat inside. That’s a pretty strong set of pinchers! Fortunately, there’s a pretty good supply of coconuts in their native Pacific Island homes. You should Google a picture of one clinging to a garbage can. If he wanted to, he could climb into that can and use it as a nicely sized shell!

                Tasmanian Giant Crab:

                This crab can be up to a very impressive 29lbs! They are quite impressive to see, needless to say, but the male is liable to get more of your attention. He develops one claw which is in scale with the size of his body. The other one is two or three times that big! It would be like having a right arm the size of your leg. He can use this to pinch open the mollusks that he eats. These deep-water Australian natives can only mate during that brief period after they’ve shed their old shell and put on a new one, before the new hardens too much. This may happen as infrequently as every nine years. It’s no wonder the female lays as many as two million eggs at a shot! She may not have another chance for a while.

                Japanese Spider Crab:

                If you think you’ve been impressed so far, you have not yet begun to gasp. The Japanese Spider Crab is the biggest crab in the world. It can have an arm span as wide as twelve feet. That’s just about as long as the average living room! Huge! It’s amazing to realize that these hulking guys actually start out as small, round, transparent, legless little plankton-like blobs. Mind you, so do we. But in spite of their massive size, these guys still manage to hide away. They vaguely resemble the sea floor in color and texture to begin with. Then they stick sponges and kelp to themselves so they blend in even more. By the way, did I mention? They also may live to be as old as 100 years! What an amazing creature.

                Yeti Crab

                This guy isn’t so big, but he is an unusual looking crab. He is actually a furry crab! His long, yellow, fuzzy arms kind of look like feathers. This South Pacific deep- water crab brushes his hairy chest very carefully every day. It’s not vanity. He catches his food in his hair and combs it out at dinner time.

                Shame-Faced Crab

                This little fellow gets his startling name from his habit of wrapping his claws around his face as though he were embarrassed by something,

                Rainbow Swimming Crab

                This creature could just as easily have been named “Psychedelic Crab”. Their beautiful shell displays every color of the rainbow and then some.

                Vampire Crab

                Aptly named and a wee bit spooky. This black crab, upon reaching adulthood, develops bright red eyes. Yikes!

                Candy Crab

                This crab, no doubt, gets his name from his appearance. He’s all pink and gooey looking like he just might melt. But don’t eat him too quick or you might get a mouthful of something you weren’t expecting. He has this habit of grabbing bits of coral and sticking them to his back.

                I could keep crabbing at you for hours. Did you know there are something like 5000 species scuttling around out there? And some of them have some really interesting names, like Clown Crab, Raspberry Crab, Electric Leg Hermit Crab, Emerald Crab, Teddy Bear Crab, Nimble Spray, Pom Pom Boxer, and Sally Lightfoot Crab. And the more you look, the more you find one is more fascinating than the last.

                So, make sure to spend some time with Mother Nature, this summer. You can never tell what she may have tucked under a rock somewhere.