Blue crabs from the Lynnhaven River in Virginia Beach in May 2025. (Photo by Katherine Hafner/WHRO)
Each summer for nearly four decades, scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center have tethered some baby blue crabs along a Chesapeake Bay tributary.
Then they watched, hoping to learn more about which marine creatures prey on crabs. Turns out, their biggest predators were their own kind…