Crab Trapped in Plastic Bottle Survived Two Months at Sea

A crab trapped by its own growth exposes an overlooked hazard of floating plastic waste. About 500 meters off Sesoko Island in Okinawa, Japan, a plastic bottle drifted at the sea surface with juvenile fish gathered around it. The researchers found the crab inside a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottle that had once contained Shaoxing wine. “[To our surprise], a large live swimming crab, Portunus sanguinolentus, was trapped inside the bottle. DNA recovered from the crab’s stomach contents identified juvenile fish that had gathered around the floating bottle.