Snow crab Coloring Pages

The Snow crab that lives in the cold, deep sea

Snow crabs areAt the bottom of the cold, deep sealives inSnow crabIt is a relative of the Snow crab.
In Japan, they live in places like the Sea of Japan and the seas around Hokkaido. They spend their time on sandy or muddy bottoms at depths of about 200 to 600 meters!
That is a dark, cold world where almost no sunlight reaches.
The "Zuwai" in the Snow crab's name means a thin tree branch."Suwae"It is said to come from the words.
Maybe their long, thin legs looked like tree branches.
When a male Snow crab grows big, its spread-out legs can almost reach as long as an adult's arm.

It has 10 legs in all

The first coloring page shows the Snow crab seen from right above.
Count its legs!2 legs with clawsAnd8 legs for walkingAnd, how many in total?10 legsHere's one!
Crabs are in the same "decapod" group as shrimp.
Its walking legs are long and thin with pointed tips. They are perfect for walking on the sand and mud at the bottom of the sea.
Its shell looks like a rounded triangle, and the surface has lots of little bumps, doesn't it?
In front of its shell, there are 2 little eyes sitting right there.

Walk slowly on the deep ocean floor

The second page shows the Snow crab walking on the deep ocean floor.
It is raising one claw up and stretching the other one forward while moving to the upper right.
On the ground, there are little rocks and sea anemones, and near the top, there isCodis swimming, and on the sandFlounderis here!
Snow crabs use their claws to pinch and eat things like shellfish, tiny shrimp, and ragworms.
They dexterously use their claws to carry food to their mouth.
Deep down in the sea, the water is very cold, so the Snow crab grows up nice and slow over a long time.

At the winter fishing port, the Snow crab arrives

The 3rd coloring page shows big and small Snow crabs that were just caught, lined up on a tray at a fishing port on the Sea of Japan in winter!
In the background, you can see a crab fishing boat, a crab trap, ropes, and boxes.
Snow is fluttering in the sky, and seagulls are flying around and perched on wooden posts.
In the winter, the waves are high in the Sea of Japan, and fishermen go out to sea in the cold to catch crabs.
The caught Snow crabs are quickly taken to the port market and delivered to stores all across the country.

Living Snow crabs and boiled Snow crabs

A Snow crab living in the sea is reddish-brown.
If you color the shell and the tops of the legs reddish-brown, and color the base of the legs on the belly side cream, it will look just like a real one!
When you want to make a boiled Snow crab, try coloring it with bright orange or red.
A Snow crab's color changes to red when it is boiled.
It is also fun to color two pages and compare how it looks before and after boiling!

Color the legs section by section

The legs are made of many connected tubes separated by joints.
For each tube, if you make the middle light and the edges a little darker, it will look like a round tube.
Make the tips of the claws and the tips of the legs dark brown.
If you add a little dark color to the bumps on the shell one by one, it will look rough and bumpy!
It is good to color the eyes black and leave a small white shine.
Color the pointed tips of the legs darker bit by bit.

Deep sea colors and winter port colors

For the sea in the second picture, if you make the top dark blue and make it closer to purple or almost black near the sea floor, it will look like the deep sea.
Color the sand and mud gray or light brown.
For the winter sky in the third picture, make it light gray or light blue, and leave the snow white.
If you make the tray blue, the red Snow crab will stand out well!
If you color it together with the Sailfin sandfish coloring page, the winter Sea of Japan will become very lively!

Fishing starts on November 6th

To keep people from catching too many crabs, the government sets rules for when you can catch Snow crab in each sea area.
In the Sea of Japan, from Shimane Prefecture to Toyama Prefecture, fishing opens on November 6th.
Everyone looks forward to this day, so the ports and markets get very busy.
It is also popular to put it in a hot pot to eat during the cold winter.

The name changes depending on where it is caught

Male Snow crab get different names depending on where they are caught.
It is called Echizen crab in Fukui Prefecture, Kano crab in Ishikawa Prefecture, and Matsuba crab in the San'in region, such as Tottori Prefecture.
They are all the exact same Snow crab.
Each port attaches a different colored tag to its leg so you can tell where it was caught.

Females are small and have different names

Females are much smaller than males. They are called Seiko crab in Fukui Prefecture and Koubako crab in Ishikawa Prefecture.
The small black spots on their shell are the eggs of a creature called a crab leech.
They do not hurt the Snow crab at all. The leeches just use the shell as a place to lay their eggs.