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Vol. 53 - Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

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hard parts with the palps <strong>and</strong> then dropped the cleaned hard parts. Only<br />

small fragments of plate or shell were ingested. Previously Pearson et al<br />

(1979,1981) have seen similar selective feeding on soft tissue <strong>and</strong><br />

discarding of hard parts by the Dungeness crab, C. magister. The<br />

implication of the selective ingestion observed in the juvnenile king crab<br />

is that in actively selecting soft tissue <strong>and</strong> rejecting hard tissue, the<br />

crab is not ingesting prey items in proportion to the occurrence of hard<br />

parts of those items in the stomach. For example, juvenile king crab<br />

could well be consuming more clams than the presence of shell fragments<br />

indicates.<br />

DIEL FEEDING CHRONOLOGY<br />

Diel feeding chronologies were determined for June <strong>and</strong> August (Figures<br />

9, 10 <strong>and</strong> 11). In June juvenile king crab were not sampled at every hour<br />

of the day, but in August 25 crabs were obtained in each 2-h period of the<br />

24-h cycle. In October only one juvenile king crab greater than 20 mm CL<br />

was collected. Consequently, the best estimate of the diel feeding<br />

chronology for juvenile king crab came from August. For tanner crab the<br />

sample sizes for crabs greater than 20 mm CW were inadequate to construct<br />

a diel feeding chronology. Tanner crab less than 20mm CW had extremely<br />

small stomach volumes (

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