DISTRIBUTION OF SCYLLA SERRATA DURING SPRING AND NEAP TIDE IN

MANGROVE AREA AT KUANTAN RIVER

INTRODUCTION

Mangrove forests are most productive ecosystems among the

world. It is usually known as ‘tidal forests’, coastal woodlands’ or ‘oceanic
rainforests’ that is living along in front of area between land and sea. At
low tide the water is confined to the main channel but as the tide rises
unvegetated tidal flats are inundated, then the estuary overflows its banks
and progressively floods the mangrove vegetation. Only during rare
extreme high spring tides is the entire area of mangrove vegetation
flooded. During other tides a varying extent of the mangrove vegetation is
flooded.

It supports diverse groups of aquatic and terrestrial organisms

(Kathiresan, 2010) which have a lot of food and protein sources. There are
a lot of variety of organisms such as core forests, litter forest floors,
mudflats, and adjacent coral reefs and seagrass ecosystems. The
contiguous water bodies consist of the rivers, bays, inter tidal creeks,
channels and backwaters.

One of the organisms that has high commercial value is mud crab,
Scylla Serrata. It inhabits brackish waters, such as mangrove areas and
estuaries, throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans, from Tahiti, Australia,
and Japan to southern Africa. It has been identified that there 15 species
of crabs available in Bangladesh where among them, there are 11 species
inhabit marine water (Zafar and Ahsan, 2007). Fushimi (1999) described
that 3 Scylla sp. that are being distinguished are Scylla serrata, Scylla
transquebarica and Scylla oceanica and they are usually studied on
morphological characteristics, seed production and feedings.

Mud crab is known to migrate into backwaters, estuaries and

coastal lakes have their own commercial value around the world where it
is the target of a lucrative fishery (Hora, 1935). It has a significant industry
throughout South East Asia (Pavasovic, 2004), where it used to be the
most important crab species in Bangladesh and Indonesia for food and
trade (Khan and Alam, 1991; Mirera and Mtile, 2009), source of income for
fish farmers in Philippines (Quinitio et. al., 2002) and prized for family
feast and food for tourists hotels in Kosrae (Ewel, 2007) and Kenya (Mirera
and Mtile, 2009). This is because of the mud crab has a very high market
value and throughout the Western world is viewed as a delicacy, largely
due to its low fat, high vitamin and mineral content as well as fine taste
(Baliao, 2000) and as replacement for shrimp economically (Ferdoushi et
al., 2010).

In Malaysia, study on mud crab is not too much as high as

Bangladesh, Australia, Japan, India and Indonesia. In Bangladesh for
example, researchers study on mud crab and they can exploit mud crab
production not only for local consumption, but also for foreign export and
trading. It can be look when Azam et. al (1988) reported that mud crab
gained popularity in greater Khulna and Chittagong regions in Bangladesh
which led to consider and increase its demand in the local and
international market. In Bangladesh, accordingly to the fact reported by
Ferdoushi et. al (2010), Bangladesh began exporting mud crabs around
1977-8 and since 1982 the value of export earnings has been steadily
increasing. And then in 2002, mud crabs ranked third in terms of frozen
food export items until Bangladesh earned US$3,668,000 in 2005-2006,
increasing 65% total export value from year 2006-2007.

According to villages around Kuantan River, it is very hard to catch

that mud crab because of time dependant on the tides and baits those are
used to trap the crab. It is very essential to when the best time and baits
is recognized in order to trap the mud crab once in the highest number.
Some give opinions that the best time to set up the trap is during full
moon and high tides and mud crab will not exit from its burrow during new
moon. Because of the study on mud crab behavior is not too much, this
paper is proposed to study about the distribution and the diversity of mud
crab during spring and neap tide in mangrove are at Kuantan river using
different type of baits. It will help our villagers and fisherman to trap mud
crab in its nature habitats in low cost at effective time in order to increase
economical income for them.

OBJECTIVES

1. To determine the distribution of Scylla serrata during neap tide or

spring tide
2. To determine distribution of the mud crab in mangrove area at
Kuantan River
3. To test the best baits between whitespotted bambooshark, trash
fish and sting ray to trap mud crab in mangrove area

HYPOTHESIS

There are most abundant of mud crab during spring tide compare to neap
tide. There are also trash fish which raise high odor smell can attract more
mud crab into the trap compare to other baits.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Description of Mud Crab

The giant mud crabs Scylla serrata, popularly known as mud crab
and locally called Ketam Nipah or Haubba kankra in Thailand are the most
species of commercially harvested crabs as alternative food (Quinitio et.
al., 2002) in a lower price than any other seafood (Khan and Alam, 1991)
such as shrimps. They are usually referred to as swimmer or paddle crabs
and are easily recognized by their broadly flattened back legs with paddle-
like last segments. They can be differentiated from other swimmer crabs
by having very robust claw and 0 similarly-sized spines on each side of its
deep green carapace. According to Ewel (2007), mangrove crabs are
large, tasty, and relatively easy to capture, making them an increasingly
scarce resource throughout the Indo-Pacific region. The largest species of
swimmer crab and can reach 28 cm in carapace width and 3 kg in weight
but is more commonly 15-20 cm in width and 0.5-1.0 kg.

According to Bowen (1984), sex characteristics of mud crab can be

recognized by its claws and tail flaps. Male mud crab has triangular tail
flap, while females denoted by rounded tail flaps. The differentiation
between male and female at its claws can be looked at spines behind
fingers and wrist spines. Male have single at each spine. However female
has two spines at each spine.
Demand of Mud Crab around over the world

Mud crabs is one importance fishery commodities in Indonesia

(Muchlisin and Azizah, 2009) and Bangladesh (Mirera and Mtile, 2009) that
contribute to the increasing the social economy on their country.
According to Mirera and Mtile (2009), with gradual increase in market
demand through the tourism industry and increasing coastal population,
mud crab culture has the potential of developing significantly as an
alternative livelihood alternative for the people. It is exported from Kosrae,
Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. This species is very
popular seafood and has high prices due to taste and nutritional contents.
Therefore, the demand for mud crab is increasing over the years
(Muchlisin and Azizah, 2009).

By minority of Hindus, crabs are traditionally eaten by tribals. Some

Muslims and others, particularly those not strongly bound by custom and
religion, also eat crab Khan and Alam, 1991; Mirera and Mtile, 2009). From
the eighties, traders have been trying to develop an export market for
crab. Some trial exports were made to Hong Kong and Singapore over this
period, hut export has been successful only in the last 2-3 years.
Sivasubramaniam and Angell (1991) also recorded that India, Sri Lanka,
Indonesia and Baladesh were exporting mud crabs to Malaysia as much as
two tonnes exported daily. This show the high demand from Malaysian
should have a high potential in order to meet that demand at the local
market.

Distribution of Mud Crab

Giant mud crabs are widely distributed through Indo-Pasific Region

including the Bay of Bengal region (Sivasubramaniam and Angell, 1991;
Khan and Adam, 1991) and around the Indian Ocean to east Africa.
However, Sivasubramaniam and Angell recorded that on the northeast
coast of India and in some parts of Malaysia and Thailand, it is reported
that a smaller type of mud crab is found.

Mud crabs are usually found in sheltered waters, particularly in

estuaries and commonly in the mud flats of the littoral, parts of the
supralittoral and the intertidal zones (Khan and Adam, 1991). They can
tolerate mode variation in temperature (12-35oC) and salinity (2-50%) and
rarely tolerate to turbid water. However their activity and feeding slows
greatly below 20oC. Though these crabs seem to prefer mangrove
swamps, they exist in large numbers in live in mud burrows during
daytime, which occur densely in intertidal mangrove swamps’, a little
above the low tide mark. But most bury in mud subtidal levels.

Food of Mud Crab

Traditionally, mud crabs have been viewed as carnivores that show

natural diets (Pavasovic, 2004). In terms of food, mud crabs those are
juveniles, subadults and adults exit at night during high tides to search
food (Khan and Alam, 1991; Sivasubramaniam and Angell, 1991) mainly
on mollusks, crustaceans, worms and dead fish (Pavasovic, 2004). Ladra
et al. (1991) also reported that mud crab is usually exit to search for food
and being trapped during full moon. Many villagers agreed that crab will
not exit during new moon. Besides, according to Lee (1991) mud crab is
also nocturnal feeders where it is remaining buried during the day and
emerging at sunset and the mud crab food was reported consists of 50%
of mollusks and 21% crustaceans. Mud crabs are also known to prefer live
food and locate prey by sight, touch and chemical means (Pavasovic,
2004).
 Kathirvel (1991) also reported feed behavior that had been
observed in the Cochin backwaters, Karwar and Ennore estuary and
Publicat Lake. The figure also agreed that mud crab favor on mollusks and
crustaceans, component consists mainly of the remains of a burrowing
and slow moving pinnotherid crab to make mud crab more easy to pray.

Trapping of Mud Crab

According to Sivasubramaniam and Angell (1991) commercial

exploitation is usually when the crabs are about a year and more. Though
major exploitation is in the estuarine mangrove environment, some adults
are caught in the open sea during reproductive migration of, primarily, the
females. But according to Khan and Alam (1991) about 80% of the catch
from burrows mud crabs in a night are males. There are also Ewel (2007)
reported that a sample of 368 crabs caught from 1999–2001 primarily by
traps set along interior and fringe mangrove channels and by hand along
randomly selected transects in Kosrae.

Many types of fisheries techniques on mud crab are used around

the world. Ladra and Mondragon (1991) reported fishing gear in Philipines
using fish pot, castnet, trawl galadgad, shallow water push net, beach
seine, fish corral, bottom gillnet, fykenet and crab liftnet. Tookwinas et al.
also report on fishing gears in Thailand just like in Philipines where crab
liftnet has 2 different appearances and other trap such as collapsible crab
trap and cone shaped bamboo trap. Fishing of mud crab is mainly take
place in mangrove and coastal areas by using cone shaped bamboo
device and crab gillnet is used for swimming crab (Tookwins et al., 1991).
Ladra et al (1991) reported that a liftnet can catch about 12 kg of mud
crab a day. The nets are set up before sunset or before high tide and
retrieved the following day. Liftnet in Malaysia is most likely bintoh where
it has long handline to sink the trap in river.

This paper research would like to study about distribution and

diversity of mud crab along Kuantan river. This study would give chance
and opportunity to fisherman to get a lot of mud crab in optimum numbers
because of their highly prized as food wherever they occur. They are often
subjected to heavy fishing pressures by amateur as well as professional
fishermen. It will cover the study of interval time during spring tide using
traps and the cheapest such as trash fish, crustaceans and mollusks.

METHODS

i. Sampling site
Sampling site in random mangrove area at Kuantan river
ii. Bait preparation
3 effective and cheap baits are selected which are whitespotted
bambooshark, trash fish and sting ray. All of these baits is left of
 baits for 1 days to raise their odor smell in order to attract crab
during trapping.
iii. Setup trap (bintoh)
Each 3 type of baits is put in 5 traps and all 15 traps are set up
at a location in mangrove area. Other 15 traps are set up with
baits to be placed at different location in mangrove area. Time to
set up these traps are during night spring tide and neap tide
iv. Sample collection
The width and length of crab carapace and its weight that is
trapped in the bintoh is measured after it is trapped in the
bintoh. The sex characteristics is determined by its tail flaps.

EXPECTED RESULTS

1. The effective time to trap the mud crab based on the moon phase

time and tide table is determined

2. The best and cheapest bait to trap the mud crab is determined

3. The best location to trap the mud crab is determined

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