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  Lisa Watkins, Washington Sea Grant

  June 24, 2025 11:46 pm

  So fun to see you hitting the ground running with Molt Search this month! Reports from the shores of Whidbey are particularly valuable as we keep an eye out for more spread there, so thanks for taking the time to do a search there this week! Thanks to your clear photo with something for scale (an upsidedown credit card or key or a note with the shoe size next time will allow us to use your data even more!) our data check job is super fast and easy on your reports–I made a correction on your Dungeness count for this one. It looks like you did a great job discerning between red rock crabs (empanada-like marginal teeth + protruding rostrum between their eyes) and Dungeness (widest at 10th tooth), but didn’t actually have any Dungeness in your collection. Those two you found are actually our native graceful crabs, which are widest on their 9th marginal tooth and have a notch just beyond it that counts as their final, 10th tooth. I like to slide my fingernail down the side to be sure–if it catches on a notch its a graceful crab; if it slides smoothly out to that broadest final tooth, it’s a Dungeness. We always do a check on photos and are happy to help with ID and do corrections from our end, but if you’re interested in diving in further, here’s a link to flashcards with side-by-side images of these three tricky cancrid crabs: https://wsg.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/MEGRvCAPRvMEMA-Slides.pdf. -Lisa

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