Let's show how creative you are: Drawing a crab.

Cheers, beautiful artists of steem4Nigeria, I'm here again and it's been such a long time. I have missed this drawing contest and I appreciate @benton3 for bringing it back. So today, we are drawing a crab. Let's see how creative I'll be and I believe you will also learn some things about crab today. • Plain sheet • Pencil • Sharpener • Eraser

• I started by drawing the body of the crab. The top of the body is a little bit round while the down part is kind of straight and smaller. I drew the upper part on a kind of zigzag way.

The body of my crab

• In my step 2, I drew the two claws that is by the side of the head. These claws area little bit big and curvy and sharp.

• My 3rd step was drawing all the legs of the crab which I did. I drew 4 additional legs on both sides of the crab.

• My final step was drawing the eyes of the crab which I did by adding two small dots in bold. And my crab is complete.

Crabs are animals that live in water. They are members of the animal group called crustaceans. They are invertebrates, that is,animals without backbones. They have hard shells that protect their internal organs. Crabs have five pair of legs which includes their walking legs and claws. They are decapods.

Crabs can be found in water, both salt water and fresh water, including oceans. Though some crabs live on land close to water. They have the ability to swim and move from one place to another. While moving, they walk in all directions conveniently, front, back and even sideways.

Crabs feed on anything they see, including clams, dead animals, other crabs, algae, vegetable matter etc. They use their claws to tear off small pieces of food as the claw is very sharp. A crab in Africa has a different lifespan from a crab in other continent. The lifespan of a crab has to do with environmental factors, it's size and species. Small crabs can live between 5 to 10 years, medium size crab can live between 10 to 20 years, and large crabs can live up to 30 years. Japanese spider crab, from research, can live up to 100 years. On Africa , a crab can live up to 4 years. Crabs come in different colours like blue, red, purple, brown etc. During the day, crabs rest and conserve energy and are most active at night.

During the mating season, a female crab will find a comfortable spot to release her eggs. It can release as much as 1000 to 2000 eggs at once, and they have a unique pregnancy which is only for 1 or 2 weeks. A make crab is called Jimmy while a female crab is called sooks.

I have seen crab in the past though it was years ago and I have also eaten it though I was little then.

Crabs just like every other creation is an important component of marine and fresh water ecosystem.

• Crabs contribute to habitat maintenance, nutrients cycling and food web dynamics.

• They serve as decomposers in the marine ecosystem by helping to clean up the sea bottom because they harvest decomposed plant and animal matter.

• They are consumed as food or meat by man and they serve as a good source of protein, omega-3 fatty acids, minerals and vitamins and this improves one's heart health.