What do crabs eat

I love catching crabs and enjoy eating them even more, but when other crab anglers get wind of your success they always want to know what bait you are using in your crab pot. I get asked about crab eating habits fairly often so I thought it might be worth writing a little post about what crabs actually eat.

What do crabs eat
There are many different types of crabs including the spider crab, hermit crab, mud crab, blue crab, horseshoe crab, fiddler crab and sand crab, just to name a few. Even though there are hundreds of different species all the research suggests that they have a very similar diet.

It might surprise people that about half of a crabs diet is plant matter, but that doesn't mean you should start putting rotting wood into your crab pots just yet. The other half of a crabs diet consists of any animal matter that it can scavenge. This is made up primarily of fish matter, shellfish, snails, worms, fungi and bacteria. Contrary to popular belief crabs are more partial to fresh fish than rotten fish. The later being popular with crab anglers due to the belief that crabs can find rotting animal materials because of the smell.

Other Crab Facts

• The crab's teeth are in their stomachs.
• Crabs live for about 3 years on average.
• A crab can voluntarily detach its claw when in danger and its claw it will grow back.