New rare crab on the tongues of gourmet chefs

As the best time for tasting hairy crabs comes along with the autumn, a rare white-shell crab variety named "White Jade Crab" has caught many eyes of gourmet chefs at the 2024 Crab Industry (Shanghai) Expo held from Thursday to Sunday in Shanghai.

Compared with the common deep-green-shelled crabs, the white crabs are distinctively featured with white shells when both raw and cooked, visible crab roe, as well as a finer, tenderer and fresher texture.

After eight years of research and development by a team led by Wu Xugan, a professor at the School of Aquatic and Life Sciences at Shanghai Ocean University, this special variant is seeing the first season of mass production and now serving on family tables in the Yangtze River Delta region.