Beach Crabs

Ghost Crab
Ghost Crab
Ocypode quadrata
Fiddler Crab
Fiddler Crab
Uca spp

These small crabs are largely terrestrial. Female Fiddler Crabs lack the huge claw of the male, which is very strong but is used only in dance-like territorial displays. Several species in the area differ mainly by habitat. Fiddlers prefer marshes and stream banks, where huge colonies riddle the peat with tunnels near the waterline. Almost entirely terrestrial, you will find Ghost Crabs skittering across the beaches at night. Placed in the water, they may even drown! Both grow to a body size of approximately 1 inch.

Fiddler Crabs
Fiddler Crabs tend to live in nasty places. Note the odd left-handed male at upper-right.

US Fish & Wildlife Service Species Profile


Type:
shipwreck, steamer
Depth:
80 ft

A very small wreck, consisting of a primitive single-cylinder steam engine and a large, completely broken-down boiler. Odd pieces of pipe and machinery lie around, but no remains of a hull, although there appears to be some iron plating under the engine. Guessing from the technology, the construction would date to around 1860 +/- 10 years, and the sinking would have been sometime after that.