Proximate Composition and Mineral Contents of Freshwater Crab Spiralothelphusa hydrodroma (Herbst, 1794) from Parangipettai, South East Coast of India

The role of aquatic rice field species in rural diets has been underestimated. These aquatic animals potentially supply most of the protein, carbohydrate and other nutrients that are needed by the villagers. The information on nutritional composition of aquatic animal resources from rice fields is scarce since they are not common in the food baskets of most other countries. Generally marine crabs are widely used as food and feed supplements throughout the world, but people do not consider paddy fields for freshwater crabs. Although large numbers of freshwater crabs are suitable for human consumption, these aquatic animals are not consumed in large quantities elsewhere. National and regional food composition data bases contain very limited info on nutritional composition of these species. In the present study an attempt has been made to evaluate the nutritional status of the edible potamid crab The result showed that the parameters like protein, carbohydrate, lipid, moisture and ash and minerals of calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron, copper and zinc were maximum in cephalothorax and minimum in swimming and walking legs.