This highly nutritious meat is considered a delicacy and is usually boiled and served in the shell with a sauce. The meat resembles lobster in appearance and flavor. Adult stone crabs are easily recognized by their oval body and two large claws. The adult body of the stone crab is dark brownish red, more or less mottled and spotted with dusky gray. An interesting feature about the stone crab is the mark on the inside of the large claw that resembles a thumb print.
Stone crabs inhabit bays and estuaries where they hide under rocks and shell fragments.
When fully grown they move into shoals just below the low tide mark and dig oblique burrows 12 to 20 inches deep. Stone crabs are found along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts but are commercially harvested almost entirely in Florida. Fishery regulations specify a harvest season of October 15 to May 15. Stone crabs are captured commercially with traps which are re-baited every other day. Florida law forbids the taking of whole stone crabs.