Over the summer, crabbers in Chesapeake Bay pulled up four funny looking creatures. They were not the bay’s normal, skinny blue crabs, but instead, chunky stone crabs, the delectable crustaceans whose claws sell for between $40 and $70 — or more — per pound.

“This is the first documented instance of stone crabs now being able to live inside of Chesapeake Bay,” said marine biologist Romuald Lipcius, of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, William & Mary, who is researching the finding.

The stone crab range expansion may eventually bode well for Chesapeake crabbers, but the warm waters that made it possible are not necessarily a good sign for the crabs in Florida.

The stone crabs discovered in the Chesapeake were large enough to be about four or five years old, meaning they may have

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