Coast : Visitors From South Showing Up on Shore

Local beachgoers are noticing what appears to be an invasion of tiny lobsters washing ashore. But before residents go home to fetch the bottle of bubbly and the drawn butter, officials of the California Fish and Game Department warn that things are not quite as they seem.

The sea-borne critters are actually pelagic crabs, said Ralph Young, a spokesman for the department’s Long Beach office. Infrequently called by their scientific name, Pleuroncodes planipes, the crustaceans normally reside on the muddy bottom of the Continental Shelf, just off the southern coast of Baja, Mexico.

Although the crabs are edible, Young said, it would take plenty of the shellfish to make a meal and many connoisseurs who have tried the crabs report they are often bitter to the taste. “Opinions on the taste vary, so maybe you shouldn’t rush right out to try them,” he said.

Occasional northerly currents carry the younger crabs north before washing them ashore on the American side of the border, where they frequently foul fishermen’s nets. “This free-floating phase occurs during the first two years of their lives,” Young said. “Older, bigger and wiser crabs stay in the mud of the Continental Shelf.”

Ranging in length to about two inches, the crabs are either bright red or deep orange in color and come equipped with a pair of black “pleading eyes,” he said.

The crabs, which have a high acid content, are popular food for offshore fish, but because of their acidity, they can quickly eat through the lining of a fish’s stomach. Young suggests that local anglers remove the internal organs of the fish they catch before the acid from the crabs affects the meat.