Why do crabs walk sideways?

1.18K views

Why do crabs walk sideways?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Technically crabs can walk forwards but incredibly slowly because their shoulder joints aren’t designed to move in that direction very easily. They have joints on their legs though that flex sideways and only sideways that are faster and easier to use.

Just like we can walk sideways but find it easier to walk forwards a crab experiences the exact opposite.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Crabs have a wide, flattened shape that makes it easy to burrow into sand or squeeze into narrow crevices, but also restricts the range of motion at the ‘shoulder’ joint of each leg.

Crabs can actually shuffle slowly forward, but move much faster by flexing the second joint of each leg. These joints are simple hinges, like our knees, and they only bend sideways.

There are a few species of crabs that can move forward more efficiently than other crabs because their bodies are shaped in a way that makes them longer than they are wide. Examples of these crabs include Raninids, Libinia emarginata, and Mictyris platycheles

Anonymous 0 Comments

if you look at a crab closely its actually fairly simpel to understand why

this ia flat and wide creatures with an exoskeleton and its limbs all on the sidde of the main body, most of their joint are simple hinges and arent very mobile at the shoulder.

a crab can move forward just fine, ableit slow but they are a lot more effective at taking advantage of their from and move sideways+ that type of moiton is more useful in the other thnig crabs do well: burrowing