A Lesson of Genealogy: Looks Can Be Deceiving

[groovedaddy]

I am not a big fan of reality TV, but I will confess that I am a loyal viewer of the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” series. The show chronicles the adventures of the crews of several crabbing boats of the Alaskan fleet as they pursue red king crabs on the Bering Sea. What fascinates me, and I suspect other viewers, is the vicarious experience of watching the crews working for long stretches in unimaginable conditions.

I know that this landlubber would not last an hour on any boat as it heaved in 30-foot seas, let alone while hauling 800-pound crab pots on an ice-covered deck, in 60-mile-an-hour winds, for 20 to 30 hours straight. That’s definitely not for me. My crab-catching is limited to plucking hermit crabs the size of golf balls off the sands of some quiet Florida beach in 80-degree weather.

One might think that not only is there no comparison between my beachcombing and the dangerous business of Alaska crab fishing, but that the two kinds of crabs involved have very little in common.

The typically diminutive hermit crabs have to contort their bodies into abandoned snail shells, while the four- to nine-pound red king crabs, the largest of the more than 100 species of king crabs, freely prowl the ocean bottom in search of worms, clams, mussels, starfish and other prey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/science/24creatures.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210

[RandomThoughts]

1. Are you calling the leader of the state of Isreal a crab, after his speech?

That seems to not be a nice thing?

Or are you calling someone else a crab, also equally wrong.

I know Crab is code for 'shellfish'.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. +1

Don't go changing, dude. :rofl:

[groovedaddy]

3. Having crabs is not the same as being a crab...n/t

[provis99]

4. I evolved from a single celled paramecium

or so other DU posters have claimed...

[Nihil]

5. The ones I've read ...

... didn't say anything about evolving ...

:hide: