Large number of Red King Crabs (Paralithodes camtschaticus) found on the beach during an extreme low tide. According to fisheries researchers, crabs move to shallow water to hatch and release eggs.
Observation by Lindsey Pierce:
There were lots of female king crabs on the beach during the minus tide. I'm not sure if this is normal or unusual but I thought it was worth reporting just to at least share the pictures! It was incredible. It looked like they all had eggs but we are not sure if they were actually laying the eggs.
Kristin Cieciel, a biologist at the Auke Bay Lab, was helpful in getting the following consults.
Chris Siddon, Fisheries Scientist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, writes:
This is pretty common in general. Red King Crab come shallow in early spring to release embryos, molt, mate, and extrude a new clutch of embryos. It’s just not that often that someone is out on a low tide when/where it actually happens. It would be interesting to know if the embryos were eyed or not, to be able to tell if they were either getting ready to hatch, or if they were newly extruded. Similarly, if the crab carapaces were hard (old), or soft (newly molted).
Super cool to see!!!!
Jared Weems, PhD Student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, writes:
I would suspect the females eggs are hatching and being released, as they suggested. Red King Crab usually come up shallow to do that, though this certainly a little too shallow ;)... It was a large minus tide the 19/20th. Winds have also been up recently. Maybe that was a weird perfect storm of factors and beach orientation that pushed them up and didn't allow them to recede with the tide. Too bad she didn't pick any up and examine the egg broods. Either way, unless bothered or eaten, the crab would mostly be fine out of water a couple hours and taken out the next tide. Their gills stay pretty wet and Red King Crab are a low intertidal species.
Clutch (eggs)