Sally Lightfoot Crabs - if you can catch one by hand, you're an athlete.

Sally Lightfoot crabs, also called the red-rock crabs, are not commonly eaten by humans.

If you lift rocks up along the BC coast, you will likely find young Dungeness crabs scurrying away to find shelter.  On the Pacific Coast in Mexico, the crabs that are often seen are the Sally Lightfoot crabs.  Also called red-rock crabs, these decapods are inhabitants of rocky shorelines.  The juveniles, photographed above, are often difficult to see as they blend in well with the surfaces they inhabit.  As they grow older, they become a bright red colour and are found less frequently above the waterline.  Click here to see an adult.

They are rarely eaten by man, but are frequently preyed upon by predators in nature.  One use of them is for bait in fishing.  The Sally Lightfoot crabs consume surface deposits of algae and phytoplankton.  They also consume a wide variety of invertebrates and will even take their own kind, especially when food is scarce.  

John Steinbeck remarked that these crabs are "remarkably hard to catch" because of their quick reaction time and ability to move in any direction.  This makes me wonder if catching one to catch fish is actually harder than catching fish in the first place.  I would guess that you wouldn't do it by hand.  

Clearly, these crabs are different from the Dungeness crabs we have in BC.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com