Went crabbing...technically a success

This past weekend, we took advantage of the summer low tides to take our kids out exploring the muddy beaches.

I had mild ambitions of snorkeling for crab, but with young kids in tow, the best kinds of plans are those that are flexible.

With a spade in hand, we were on the lookout for large holes in the sand. The larger, the higher our expectations, and this hole was as wide as a thumb. We dug down to elbows, yielded this creature, a horse clam.

Inside the clam, we found not one, but two pea crabs.

We've seen pea crabs pretty frequently in larger bivalves, and even in store-bought kiwi mussels. They stow away in the clams as protection.  They offer the clams nothing in return, and may even irritate them in a way that retards the clams' growth, so they are regarded as parasites.  Females will live in the same host for life, while the males (which make up about 17% of the population) will migrate between clams, seeking to mate.

Apparently, pea crabs are fully edible, but it would take even my adventurous tastebuds a bit of coaxing to down one of these.

Here, you may observe the sexual dimorphism between the male (left) and probably gravid female (right).