"44mm
Might be red rock crab but we couldn’t definitively find 10 spines but it had 5 rostrum bumps.
Or graceful crab because it seems to have a tiny 10th spine behind the 9th."
Hi Maggie, Thanks for contributing to the Molt Blitz! (And sorry for not getting a response to your reports sooner–we’re working with the developers to find out why our admin comments keep disappearing!)
The crabs you found that day are red rock crabs. It has a similar shape and number of marginal teeth to the Graceful and Dungeness crabs, but its spines are more fluted (less pointy. I think of red rock crabs as empanada-y or stegosaurus-y). And most notably, the area between the eyes (the “rostrum) of the red rock crab protrudes significantly, unlike Dungeness and Graceful crabs where the rostrum is fairly even with the eyes. Of the three, your right that Dungeness are the only one where the final tooth is it’s widest, but the rostrum and tooth shape are how to tell the Graceful and red rock crabs apart. Hope that helps as you continue to get familiar with all this incredible diversity we have to learn in this area!
Thanks so much for contributing to this important work! Glad to have you part of the effort!
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Hi Maggie, Thanks for contributing to the Molt Blitz! (And sorry for not getting a response to your reports sooner–we’re working with the developers to find out why our admin comments keep disappearing!)
The crabs you found that day are red rock crabs. It has a similar shape and number of marginal teeth to the Graceful and Dungeness crabs, but its spines are more fluted (less pointy. I think of red rock crabs as empanada-y or stegosaurus-y). And most notably, the area between the eyes (the “rostrum) of the red rock crab protrudes significantly, unlike Dungeness and Graceful crabs where the rostrum is fairly even with the eyes. Of the three, your right that Dungeness are the only one where the final tooth is it’s widest, but the rostrum and tooth shape are how to tell the Graceful and red rock crabs apart. Hope that helps as you continue to get familiar with all this incredible diversity we have to learn in this area!
Thanks so much for contributing to this important work! Glad to have you part of the effort!