Vol. 53 - Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

to as wide as 250 mm wide by a maximum age of ten years (Butler 1960,
1961). Mating occurs when adults migrate to shallow water in the spring
and the female has molted.
Females do not extrude eggs until the
following fall.
Egg development requires seven to ten months (Hoopes
1973).
Cancer oregonensis is a small crab up to 40 mm carapace that lives
on rocky shores and in empty shells of Balanus nubulus at greater depths
in the Bering Sea.
No information is available in the literature on its
growth and reproduction.
Cancer spp.
are eaten by the Irish lord (Hemilepidotus jordani)
and the rock sole (Lepidopsetta bilineata) (Feder and Jewett 1981).
Poole (1966) describes the five zoeal stages and megalops stage of
Cancer magister reared in a laboratory on the coast of California.
Lough (1975) discussed larval stages and development of C. oregonensis
from the plankton off the coast of Newport, Oregon.
5.1.3 Majidae
The family Majidae includes, in addition to Chionoecetes spp.,
several small "decorator" crabs of no commercial importance that are
distributed widely throughout the southeastern Bering Sea.
Hyas coarctatus
alutaceus is found from the southern Bering shelf to the Arctic,
and Oregonia gracilis and Hyas lyratus occur in more southerly areas
(McLoughlin 1963; Feder and Jewett 1980).
During epibenthic assessment
of the southeastern Bering Sea in 1975 and 1976, H. lyratus occurred in
22.1% of trawls taken between 100 and 200 m, while H. coarctatus
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