Most come from the Connecticut side. I spent a pretty crappy semester in the basement of the old Life Sciences building feeding those damn little crabs for a hypoxia avoidance experiment. They're edible. Slough Crab, Slough Oyster, or Something Else? saltwater? ‘Tis the season for yummy crab slough oysters, so thanks to Pangea Shellfish Company of Boston for giving us some … Pea crabs are not on menus, so people don't know they even exist, much less are edible. May 01, 2015 / Connie Lu. What are pea crabs and why are they in my oysters? I soon learned that the little edible creatures are called pea crabs, or sometimes oyster crabs. We’ve learned that George Washington loved to eat the little crabs and many consider it good luck to find them. These oysters get broiled with garlic, spinach, spicy brown butter and a pea crab. The people I talked to said that the crabs were like wrasse fish, they cleaned the gills of the oysters and made them even cleaner. The preferred binomial name is the Zaops ostreus, common name, oyster crab. They are red in color and form symbiotic relationships with oysters, according to the release issued by the program. A locally guarded treasure. Lived and worked on the Cape most of my life. Pea crab, any member of a genus (Pinnotheres) of crabs (order Decapoda) living in the mantle cavity of certain bivalve mollusks, echinoderms, and polychaetes as a commensal (i.e., on or in another animal host but not deriving nourishment from it). So, back to the question of slough oyster vs. slough crab. what type of environment should I create for the pea crabs I found in my oysters? Almost every one of these will have a tiny “pea crab” living inside the oyster–perfectly edible, if … Pea crabs are edible; in fact, in 1913 the New York Times published an article that is still cited, extolling the flavor of pea crabs writing, “Oyster crabs are as dainty a morsel as the gourmet can have at any price.” Nonetheless, it can be somewhat disconcerting to pop open a raw oyster and see a crab scuttle across the meat. Worms that are found on oysters are called mud worms. Though your first thought may be to chuck the oyster and crab and complain to your server that your oyster treat had been invaded and occupied by an unwanted houseguest, avoid the knee-jerk reaction and just consider yourself lucky, one of the chosen few. I’d been eating oysters for most of my life—in fact, I grew up in the Long Island town of Blue Point, namesake of the bluepoint oyster—but this was new to me. Wild oysters from North Carolina’s outer banks, open to harvest only Oct-March. In fact, I only recall seeing them in oysters from the Long Island Sound and inlets along the Chesapeake Bay. Martha Jane said they are usually found in oysters from the James River area of the Chesapeake Bay, but not often in locally harvested oysters. I found three pea crabs in my oysters. If you ever come across an open oyster with a tiny crab-looking critter dwelling comfortably in it, you should eat it. Were they making a virtue out of necessity, i.e. It sure is–that’s a pea crab, considered by select epicureans to be a tasty and rare delicacy. If you've ever encountered a pea crab in your life, it's very likely that you saw one while eating an oyster! I feel as though the local ones were more opaque/clear than the red ones in the Chesapeake area that seem more common on a search. (I once found a pea crab in an ultra-briny North Carolina oyster.) Is this normal? Is that a crab in my Outer Banks oyster? Any oyster from Long Island Sound can be called a Bluepoint. Until pea crabs become the next big thing, when you visit the oyster bar tell your server if there's a pea crab in your oyster you want it. I found that they usually eat what the oyster brings in for food. Can confirm, not uncommon to find them in local oysters here. Anyway, I've never encountered one of the locally named pea crabs inside an oyster, but I don't have volume experience w oysters. Several accepted synonyms for the oyster pea crab exist, with all deriving from the family Pinnotheridae, the family of pea crabs. Back to my original question, though. Baby oyster spat sets on the shells, and is then transferred to grow out beds elsewhere in … I would like to keep them alive and as I have already disrupted their home (in the oysters) what type of environment should I create? They are semi-wild: In the summer, beds of bottomland are cleared and fresh shell is spread on them. OMG!!! These little critters live in the gills of oysters, and sometimes will come out to play when your half shell is sitting on a plate. Pea crabs or oyster crabs. While researching her article, All About Oyster Pea Crabs, Julie Gartman found this wonderful recipe that specifically calls for the pea crabs. Considering lobster were once considered a garbage food, the culinary industry may be able to change all that. their oysters have pea crabs so they try to make it sound like it is not only normal but a good thing. They are also called "oyster pea crabs." Random fact: male pea crabs will move from oyster to oyster to do “house calls,” while the ladies stay put. That doesn’t mean they’re not elsewhere though!