Italian scientists bet on octopus to fight crab invasion

Italian scientists bet on octopus to fight crab invasion

A team from University of Bologna is betting that the common octopus can help contain the burgeoning population of blue crab -- a voracious crustacean that has ravaged shellfish production in the Adriatic. "We chose the octopus because, in the wild, it is a formidable predator of crustaceans," Antonio Casalini, one of the researchers, told AFP. Native to the North American Atlantic coast, blue crabs arrived in the Mediterranean decades ago, like…