Tuesday, May 30, 2023

What is Carcinization?

 It sounds very fancy, or like it's a chemical reaction.

In fact, it's a word that is used to refer to the fact that crabs have evolved independently at least five times. Carcinization is "turning into a crab."

It's a classic example of convergent evolution, but it keeps happening...albeit only amongst the decapod crustaceans (which also contain lobsters and shrimp and are generally tasty).

King crabs, thus, aren't actually crabs, they're false crabs.

We don't fully understand why being a crab is such a huge advantage, but one theory is that the crab body allows more space for specialized limbs and thus increased versatility over other crustacean.

And decarcinization is stopping being a crab. There's a word for that too.

Crabs are weird.

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