Life Cycle
In the Chesapeake Bay, C. sapidus undergoes a seasonal migration. After mating, the female crab travels to the southern portion of the Chesapeake, using ebb tide transport to migrate from areas of low salinity to areas of high salinity. fertilizing her eggs with sperm stored from her only mating months or almost a year before. Up to two million eggs may be produced in a single brood, and a single female can produce over 8,000,000 eggs in her lifetime. After brooding the eggs as an orange mass on her pleopods for around two weeks, the female crab releases her eggs in November or December. The crabs hatch into larvae and float in the mouth of the bay for four to five weeks, after which the juvenile crabs make their way back into the bay.
Read more about this topic: Callinectes Sapidus
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