Metacarcinus anthonyi
species of crustacean
Metacarcinus anthonyi, the yellow rock crab or yellow crab, is a species of edible crab native to the Pacific coast of North America.
Distribution
Metacarcinus anthonyi occurs from Magdalena Bay, Baja California north to Humboldt Bay in Northern California, although it is uncommon further north than San Pedro. It lives in rocky areas at depths of up to 132 m (433 ft). Only the juveniles live in the intertidal zone.
Some fossils of M. anthonyi are also known from central and southern California, dating from the Pliocene and Pleistocene.
Description
Male yellow rock crabs can reach 165 mm carapace width, while females reach 148 mm. The carapace is oval, fairly broad, and widest at the 9th of 10 forward-curving anterolateral teeth. Like other California Cancridae crabs, M. anthonyi has black-tipped claws. M. anthonyi can be distinguished from Romaleon antennarium by its lack of red spotting on its underside. M. anthonyi also tends not to decorate itself and tends not to have hairy legs.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6822385. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Metacarcinus anthonyi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.