brown box crab

{{Short description|Species of king crab}}

{{Speciesbox

| image = Brown box crab (Echidnocerus foraminatus).jpg

| taxon = Echidnocerus foraminatus

| authority = Stimpson, 1859{{cite journal|last=Stimpson|first=William|author-link=William Stimpson|year=1859|title=Notes on North American Crustacea, no. 1.|journal=Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York|volume=7|issue=11|pages=49–93|doi=10.1111/j.1749-6632.1862.tb00142.x }}

}}

The brown box crab (Echidnocerus foraminatus) is a king crab that lives from Prince William Sound, Alaska to San Diego, California,{{cite web |url=http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/kodiak/photo/crabboxa.htm |title=Brown box crab, Lopholithodes formaminatus [sic] |publisher=Alaska Fisheries Science Center |access-date=October 25, 2011}} at depths of {{convert|0|-|547|m}}.{{cite journal|author=Chevaldonné|first1=Pierre|last2=Olu|first2=Karine|year=1996|editor-last=Robbins|editor-first=C. Brian|title=Occurrence of anomuran crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda) in hydrothermal vent and cold-seep communities: a review|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/107744#page/308/mode/1up|journal=Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington|volume=109|issue=2|pages=286–298|via=the Biodiversity Heritage Library}} [https://decapoda.nhm.org/pdfs/12017/12017.pdf PDF] It reaches a carapace length of {{convert|150|mm}} and feeds on bivalves and detritus. The box crab gets its name from a pair of round tunnel-like openings that form between the claws and adjacent legs when the animal folds its limbs up against its body.{{Cite web|title=Crab identification and soft-shell crab|url=https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/basics/crab|access-date=2022-02-12|website=Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife|language=en}} Both claws, and their adjacent legs, have matching half-circle notches in them that line up to create a circle-shaped opening when the limbs are tightly pulled against one another. This tubular round opening is called a foramen. The crab often lies buried in the sediment, and the two foramens in the chelipeds allow water into the gill chamber for respiration. The gill chamber is also sometimes used by the commensal fish Careproctus to hold its eggs.{{cite journal|author=Peden|first1=Alex E.|last2=Corbett|first2=Cathryn A.|year=1973|title=Commensalism between a liparid fish, Careproctus sp., and the lithodid box crab, Lopholithodes foraminatus|journal=Canadian Journal of Zoology|volume=51|issue=5|pages=555–556|doi=10.1139/z73-081|bibcode=1973CaJZ...51..555P }}

File: Brown box crab specimen.jpg museum specimen prepared in a position to show how the legs and claws form two foramens while folded]]