Common Name: stone crab 



Scientific Name: Menippe species 



Other Common Names: Florida stone crab, gulf stone 



crab (Williams et al. 1 989); cangrejo de piedra negro, 



cangrejo moro (Spanish), crabe caillou noir (French) 



(Fischer 1978, NOAA 1985). 



Classification 



Phylum: Arthropoda 



Class: Crustacea 



Order: Decapoda 



Family: Xanthidae 



Stone crabs (genus Menippe) have recently under- 

 gone taxonomic revision, and two species are now 

 recognized in U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico: Menippe 

 mercenaria, the Florida stone crab; and Menippe adina, 

 the gulf stone crab (Williams and Felder 1 986, Williams 

 et al. 1 989). A third species, the Cuban stone crab (M. 

 nodifrans), is smaller and occurs in the Caribbean but 

 is not common in U.S. Gulf of Mexico estuaries (Fischer 

 1978, Williams etal. 1989). M. mercenaria occurs from 

 North Carolina around peninsular Florida to the Big 

 Bend region near Apalachicola Bay, and also in the 

 Caribbean, the Yucatan, and Belize. M. adina occurs 

 in the Gulf of Mexico from Florida's Big Bend region 

 westward through Texas to northern Mexico (Williams 

 and Felder 1 986). The two species are sympatric in the 

 Big Bend region of northwest Florida, and they often 

 hybridize there. Their evolutionary divergence may 

 have occurred as a result of geologic events and 

 oceanic processes within the past 3 million years (Bert 

 1986). It has been hypothesized that the Miocene 

 glaciation may have caused two populations of an 

 ancestral Menippe species to become isolated, result- 

 ing in allopatric speciation (Brown and Bert 1993). 

 Specific differences in coloration and morphometries 



(Williams and Felder 1 986, Bert et al. 1 996), megalopal 

 morphology (Martin et al. 1988, Guillory et al. 1995), 

 habitat utilization (Wilber 1992), low salinity tolerance 

 (Stuck and Perry 1992), low temperature tolerance 

 (Brown and Bert 1 993), and isozyme markers (Cline et 

 al. 1992) have been described. 



The life histories of these two species are summarized 

 together here because their biology is very similar, and 

 because much of the existing literature does not distin- 

 guish between them. They are referred to individually 

 here as "Florida stone crab" and "gulf stone crab", and 

 collectively as "stone crabs". It is presumed that life 

 history characteristics of the two species are similar, 

 but known differences are noted. 



Value 



Commercial : The commercial importance of stone 

 crabs comes from the meat of their highly esteemed 

 claws. The large claws contain much of the crab's 

 muscle mass, can weigh over 300 g (Stuck 1 989), and 

 have a high market value. The claw is removed after 

 capture, and the crab is released. This makes the 

 stone crab fishery unique because the harvested ani- 

 mal does not necessarily die (Restrepo 1992). Crabs 

 that survive de-clawing can then regenerate new claws, 

 but regeneration to legal size (70 mm propodus length) 

 may take a year or more. The major (crusher) claw is 

 typically on the right and the minor (pincer) claw on the 

 left, although crabs that have lost a right claw may 

 regenerate a crusher on the left after one or more 

 molts, indicating a reversal of handedness (Cheung 

 1976, Simonson and Steele 1981, Simonson 1985). 

 Most of the legal-sized harvested claws are crushers, 

 and most of the harvested crushers are right-handed 

 (Sullivan 1 979, Simonson and Hochberg 1 992). Males 



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