Heard of Raining Fish Now Brown Freshwater Crabs

Hello there, TrudyVan here

After all the rain and the flooding here by us it is not surprising at all what we discovered in our pool, one morning.

I have heard of it raining fish but never Brown freshwater Crabs. That is exactly what we found crawling around at the bottom of our pool after and extremely windy and heavy downpour of rain the night before.

I suppose I will never know how it into our pool as the nearest river is just over a kilometer away and we live in a built-up area. If you have any idea how it could have gotten into our pool, please share your knowledge and leave a comment below.

We caught the Brown freshwater Crab and put it into a plastic bucket with a little water. We drove down to the river and released the Brown freshwater Crab next to the river.

I am still amazed at how the Brown Freshwater Crab landed up in our pool. Lucky for the Crab we use completely natural pool cleaners.

Here are a few facts about the Brown Freshwater River Crab.

The Brown freshwater Crabs in South Africa seem to all belong to the "Potamonautidae" family.

All Crabs are crustaceans which means they are animals that have no backbone, a hard shell also called the exoskeleton which is made from and extremely hard substance called chiton and they have jointed appendages

They have 4 pairs of legs and two pincers and two pairs of antennae.  They have stalked eyes. That is their eyes and set on stalks and not on the body itself.  Crustaceans also have a main body shell called a carapace.

Crabs can be found in freshwater as well as in the oceans and found all over the world.

They have a set of Claws or pincers, that vary in size. Some crabs have one big claw and one small claw.

There bodies, legs and claws are covered with an extremely strong exoskeleton.

Crabs can walk forward, backwards and sideways.  I love watching them walk sidewards.

Crabs live in estuaries, on the shorelines, or in or near any water source.

Crabs feed on a variety of prey such as worms, fish, snails, and anything they can get their pincers on, dead or alive. They are scavengers and are vital to our ecosystem, they clean up by eating decomposing plants and animal waste.

Crabs shed their shells which is called moulting, as they grow.

Crabs reproduce only reproduce when the female has moulted as her shell is soft enough. The eggs are only fertilized after the female has laid them and they remain attached to her underbelly until they hatch. They are called mega-lops.

Kindest regards
TrudyVan