Romaleon antennarium

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Romaleon antennarium

Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Malacostraca
Order:	Decapoda
Infraorder:	Brachyura
Superfamily:	Cancroidea
Family:	Cancridae
Genus:	Romaleon
Species:	R. antennarium
Binomial name
*Romaleon antennarium* (Stimpson, 1856) ^[1]
Synonyms
Cancer antennarius Stimpson, 1856 ^[1]

Romaleon antennarium (formerly Cancer antennarius), commonly known as the Pacific, brown or California rock crab, is a crab of the genus Romaleon found on the western coast of North America.

Description

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Romaleon antennarium has a fan-shaped carapace with eleven teeth to either side of the eyestalks, the widest point falling at the eighth or ninth tooth. The chelipeds are quite stout with the black tips bent downward. The antennae are long and prominent, accounting for the specific name. The dorsal surfaces of adults are uniformly red, but the ventral surface of the carapace is spotted.

This species is easily confused with the red rock crab, Cancer productus. They can be distinguished by the less prominent antennae, less robust claws, and lack of ventral spots on the latter.

Fishery

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R. antennarium is harvested by sport and commercial fishermen in California, mostly from Morro Bay south. The California rock crab fishery is made up of three species - the yellow rock crab (C. anthonyi), the brown rock crab (R. antennarium), and the red rock crab (C. productus). Rock crab landings for 1999 were 790,000 pounds and have averaged 1.2 million pounds per year from 1991-1999.^[2]

References

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Romaleon antennarium.

^ ^a ^b P. K. L. Ng, D. Guinot & P. J. F. Davie (2008). "Systema Brachyurorum: Part I. An annotated checklist of extant Brachyuran crabs of the world" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 17: 1–286.
^ Parker, David O. (December 2001). "Rock Crabs". Retrieved September 10, 2013.

Top and Bottom Views of the Rock Crab - Dana Point Fish Company

Taxon identifiers
Romaleon antennarium	Wikidata: Q6496948 BOLD: 606032 CoL: 6WWKJ GBIF: 5970317 iNaturalist: 202315 IRMNG: 11783802 ITIS: 98673 NatureServe: 2.933006 NCBI: 34650 OBIS: 440397 Open Tree of Life: 2980468 Paleobiology Database: 224381 SeaLifeBase: 27122 WoRMS: 440397
Cancer antennaria	Wikidata: Q109653888 CoL: QK7G GBIF: 5970318

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