Crab trapped inside plastic bottle after outgrowing its narrow opening, study finds

Updated On: 13 August, 2026 09:25 AM IST | Tokyo | Agencies

Researchers in Okinawa, Japan, found a live crab trapped inside a plastic bottle drifting about 500 metres off Sesoko Island. The crab had likely entered the bottle as a juvenile but grew too large to escape, surviving for around two months on young fish and algae

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The crab and other contents of the bottle. PIC COURTESY/Hiroshima University

About 500 meters off Sesoko Island in Okinawa, Japan, a plastic bottle drifting at sea was found with a live crab inside whose body had grown far wider than the bottle’s opening.

The crab was not sheltering, it was trapped. The bottle’s mouth was only 24 mm across, but the crab measured 40.31 mm long and 88.23 mm wide and weighed 42.06 grams.