Oesophageal chemoreceptors of blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus, sense chemical deterrents and can block ingestion of food.

Decapod crustaceans such as blue crabs possess a variety of chemoreceptors that control different stages of the feeding process. All these chemoreceptors are putative targets for feeding deterrents that cause animals to avoid or reject otherwise palatable food. As a first step towards characterizing the chemoreceptors that mediate the effect of deterrents, we used a behavioral approach to investigate their precise location.