One crab, four feet
If you look carefully at all 36 display cabinets, it may completely change your ideas about crabs. "At mid-autumn, purple crabs come fresh to market"-descriptions in traditional Chinese literature of plump autumn crabs have deeply influenced later people's assump-tions. Yet in warmer climes, crabs' reproduction is not limited to one season. Taiwan's crabs can produce eggs repeatedly at different times throughout the year. For instance, after spawning at the end of summer, rock crabs mate for a second time in late winter. To make the best use of food resources, different crab species breed at different times.
The exhibit on "River Crabs" features Chinese mitten crabs (Eriochier sinensis) as well as the smaller mitten crabs of Taiwan's rivers. It is with good reason that Chinese mitten crabs, which grow fat on fish and shrimps trapped by sluice gates along the middle to lower reaches of the Yangtze River, have enjoyed an exalted status in Chinese cuisine for over 1,000 years.
Are all crabs eight-legged, sideways-walking "generals"? In fact, explains museum founder Li Kuan-hsing, "all the crab species which can walk sideways can also walk forwards, but the ones which can walk both forwards and backwards can't walk sideways." That's the rule crabs follow when they walk that walk. Most crabs have eight legs in four pairs, but crabs in the antlered crab family have only six legs, for their rearmost pair of limbs have specialized into hook-shaped appendages curled up over their backs, which they can use like hands to grip sea anemones and shellfish for camouflage, and also as shields to ward off attacks from other creatures. The shell-bearing crab Dorippe japonica, which has only four legs, was the first crab species collected by Li Kuan-hsing.
Help from all the harbor
The farm resort run by Li Kuan-hsing's family distantly overlooks Ilan County's Tahsi Fishing Harbor. As the fishing boats gradually return to port late in the afternoon, 28-year-old Li Kuan-hsing and his family often go there to buy fresh-caught fish. While the others concentrate on their purchases, Li Kuan-hsing likes to observe the bustling fish market. A couple of years ago, he noticed that among the sundry fish discarded from the nets as only good for making animal feed, there were actually many fascinating creatures. Curiosity drove him to poke around among the piles of cast-off fish, and he discovered a small, strangely patterned crab with only four legs-a Dorippe japonica. This find overturned his assumption that all crabs have eight legs, and from then on Li, who admits that that moment changed his life, began collecting crabs and preparing crab specimens.
For the last two years and more, Li has been a frequent sight at Tahsi Fishing Harbor, carrying a bucket of icy water with his left hand and busily picking through the piles of scrap fish with his right. Over time, everyone at the harbor has begun to look out for rare crab species for him, and the fishermen no longer simply divide crabs into edible and inedible ones. "Two years ago, I couldn't even tell swimming crabs from rock crabs," says Li. But today he can tell the stories associated with many of the crab species in his museum, and explain their ecology too.
After Li began collecting crabs, he got to know some of the crab researchers who also visit the harbor in search of specimens, and realized that live crabs are even more interesting than dead ones. Now, when fishing boats reach harbor, if the fishermen have a surviving crab they will hurry to inform Li to come and "adopt" it. Deep-sea organisms cannot survive long away from the low water temperatures of their natural habitat. But thanks to the museum's location close to the harbor, Li can quickly take such foundlings back and put them into a tank of cold water to keep them alive. In this way he collected more and more crabs until finally, having no more space for them, with his parents' support he spent nearly NT$2 million to build them "permanent accommodation" at the farm. Thus the Crab Museum came into being.
Call me Number One! Next to Taiwanese Crab Museum owner Li Kuan-hsing are two specimens of the world's biggest crab species, the giant spider crab. A live one is valued at NT$1 million.