Houston Democrats

I found the article, "Part Male, Part Female, Fully Mysterious" in the Washington Post today.

Scientists said the crab, caught May 21 near Gwynns Island in the lower bay, is an extremely rare creature called a "bilateral gynandromorph" -- that is, split between two genders -- with its right side female and its left side male.

I'm sure this news is going to create a stir among the evangelicals. Can't you just feel the legislation comming on? Maybe this is one for King David to solve by threatening to cut the crab in half, so there won't be any "confusion" if it doesn't cease and desist.

Watermen say that female blue crabs "paint their fingernails," meaning the tips of their claws turn bright red as they age. The male crabs, on the other hand, have sky-blue claws -- a sign as masculine as a mustache in the world of crustaceans.

However, now some crabs have been found that have both female and male characteristics, one red claw and one blue claw. Maybe in the future menus will have to be updated to state whether the crab meat came from seperate sex crabs or "full package" ones.

This next part will particularly frighten Congressional representatives in Washington, D.C.

Underneath, its shell should have had a design looking roughly like the U.S. Capitol dome if it were female, or a Washington Monument pattern if it were male.

By the way, the FCC is planning to make it illegal to use national landmarks and symbols in similies of a sexual nature.

This isn't the first time that such a crab has been discovered in the Chesapeake area. However, out of millions of crabs captured annualy, the last one was found in 1980.

The dual sex crab did present a certain amount of difficulty.

"What basket should we put it in?" Watson asked the captain.

"I think we're going to put it in one up front," Johnson, 50, recalled telling him.

The crab now lives at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point, Virginia, and apparently doing just fine. It is "eating voraciously and showing no signs of health problems."

A scientist for the institute speculates that the condition resulted from a "chromosonal mishap" not long after conception. It is likely that as the cells began dividing that a sex chromosome was "lost or changed." As a result each half of the crab started to develop according to "different genetic blueprints." This discovery could help scientists understand crab's genetics and early development as well as what point gender is "fixed."

Whether the crab can be reproduce is unknown, but will likely cause much consternation among conservative types.

There are other questions: Can the crab reproduce? Can it mate with itself? Mating season has come and gone for this year, Lipcius said.

"It's possible that it already mated with itself," he said.

Just be glad you weren't the crab involved in this next experiment:

Before turning over the crab to the scientists, Johnson and other watermen conducted their own experiment into its sex life, with bewildering results. They dropped a female crab, which was just about ready to mate, into its tank.

First, the half-and-half crab cradled the female under his legs, as a male crab would do in preparation for mating.

Then, the crab seemed to lose interest in the female and let her go, Johnson said.

Then a day later . . .

"He ate half of her," Johnson said.

"The first day, the male side was coming out, the next day, it was the female side," said Lipcius, noting that in the wild, female crabs will often eat other competing females after they have shed their shells and become vulnerable.

But being unique among crabs can lead to everlasting fame. Apparently, when the crab dies, it will be mounted and displayed at the institute next to the largest crab ever caught in the Chesapeake region. The crab will also be granted visitation rights to go to its discoverer's home.

Oh and the name of the crab:

Watson said the crab already has a name, Springer. The watermen thought it was strange enough to be on "The Jerry Springer Show."

Watson says his next goal is to catch a mermaid.

So Rick Perry how are you going to save us from this influx of "on the edge of the basket" crabs? I'm feeling so "threatened." I'm not sure if I can stand to swim at Galveston any more if these creatures are lurking out in the Gulf. Although, maybe more attention should be paid to that dead zone off the coast of Louisiana and the massive amounts of pollution in the Gulf of Mexico, but maybe that just makes too much sense.