Blue Swimmer Sand Crabs Watercolour Eco Art Print

 Two little blue swimmer crabs (Portunus pelagicus aka blue manna, blue, sand or flower crabs).

One of my favourite easy snorkel sessions to do here in Shark Bay, is the drift snorkel through the Little Lagoon creek – easing in and out with the tide. It’s a known stonefish hangout, so we don our sneakers and gently glide along, careful not to put our appendages down in the wrong spot. Now these snippy little critters can often be seen on the creek bed doing their ‘back off, I’m fierce’ dance, claws outstretched, ready to snip. Always entertaining.

You know, when it comes to illustrating, some pieces are really darn hard work and take a crazy amount of laborious effort (just have to look at some of these to see what I mean…). This is not one of those, it was simple, easy and fun! It just came together without any over-fussing/thinking/drinking… Now as someone who is not only allergic to crabs, we also have a dismal catch rate when it comes to crabbing, so this is probably the safest (and easiest) way for me to have a couple blue swimmers in front of me.

I also tried to find out a little more about the species and one comical thing I came across is that female blue swimmers are called Jennies. Why? No idea. Males are called Bucks. Classic.

A4 (210 mm x 297 mm)