Many Blue Crabs (genus Callinectes) resting in shallow water where turbulent water was flowing from one lagoon into another through a culvert under the road near Las Salinas. The largest appeared to be 3-4 inches wide. Cuban Black Hawk was sitting in the shrub 8 feet above the crabs feasting on them.
Link to hawk observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146957484
Update 1/30/23
Callinectes ornatus: a species of swimming crab in the genus Callinectes. It can be distinguished from the closely related Atlantic blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) by
1) the striped back legs are the easiest indicator of C. ornatus.
2) the presence of 6 frontal teeth on the carapace, compared with only 4 for C. sapidus. C. ornatus is also smaller, at a maximum carapace width of only 93 millimetres (3.7 in), compared to 230 mm (9.1 in) in C. sapidus, and is therefore not commercially exploited.
Their shells are light yellow-brown to red-brown in color. The lower tips of the claws are blue. The two spikes on each side of their shells are not as long as in blue crabs. They can be found in the western Atlantic Ocean, as well the Caribbean coastlines. Their diet consists of small crustaceans and small fish. They are also scavengers.
https://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=Callinectes+ornatus&edit%5Btype%5D%5Bbgimage%5D=on
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I had the privilege November 17-26, 2018 to participate in the bi-annual Cuba Bird Survey with Western Field Ornithologists and the Caribbean Conservation Trust (CCT). Our guides were Kurt Leuschner, College of the Desert, Palm Desert CA, Dr. Luis M. Diaz, Curator of Herpetology at the Cuban National Museum of Natural History in Havana, Jon Dunn, editor of the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America, and local natural history specialists in each region we visited.
I had the privilege again, January 4-14, 2023, to participate in the Cuba Bird Survey. We did find 25 of the 27 endemic Cuban bird species as well as many other interesting plants, animals, and people. Cuba is a fascinating country!
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NOT
C. sapidus is a decapod crab of the swimming crab family Portunidae. The genus Callinectes is distinguished from other portunid crabs by the lack of an internal cartilaginous spine on the carpus (the middle segment of the claw), as well as by the T-shape of the male abdomen. Blue crabs may grow to a carapace width of 23 cm (9 in).
https://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=Callinectes%20sapidus
Callinectes sapidus (from the Ancient Greek κάλλος,"beautiful" + nectes, "swimmer", and Latin sapidus, "savory"). A.k.a. Blue crab, Atlantic blue crab, or regionally as the Chesapeake blue crab. It is a species of crab native to the waters of the western Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and has been introduced internationally.
C. sapidus is of considerable culinary and economic importance in the United States, particularly in Louisiana, the Carolinas, the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware, and New Jersey. It is the Maryland state crustacean and the state's largest commercial fishery. Due to overfishing and environmental pressures some of the fisheries have seen declining yields, especially in the Chesapeake Bay fishery.
Unlike other fisheries affected by climate change, blue crab is expected to do well; warming causes better breeding conditions, more survivable winters, and a greater range of habitable areas in the Atlantic coast. Whether this will have negative effects on the surrounding ecosystems from an increased crab population is still unclear.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/49507-Callinectes
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/49504-Callinectes-sapidus
