Little Monsters of the Ocean: Metamorphosis under the Waves

Little Monsters of the Ocean: Metamorphosis under the Waves — page 7
Time FOR a Change A blue crab starts life as an egg in the bay at the edge of an ocean There the water is shallow and warm just right for little ones His mother scurries around with him on her belly along with one to six million other eggs When he hatches the zoea is just a thorny barb with a lot of growing to do He doesn’t look like Mom or Dad yet That’s because he needs to go through metamorphosis Until he does that however this little guy is at the mercy of the tides After hatching he is washed out to sea by the tides There he’ll spend about a month in the larval stage as a zoea growing growing and growing some more By then the zoea is huge well huge for a zoea about 0 04 inches 1 mm It’s time for him to move up to the next stage a shrimpy-looking ghost called a megalops A female blue crab carries her eggs on her belly As the eggs use up their yellow yolk they turn darker eventually becoming black 8