{"id":14519,"date":"2024-10-05T00:23:15","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T04:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/dungeness-crab\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T23:38:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T04:38:29","slug":"dungeness-crab","status":"publish","type":"species","link":"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/dungeness-crab\/","title":{"rendered":"Dungeness crab"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranging from red-brown to purple in color, the Dungeness crab has an oval body with eight legs and two claws. The upper (dorsal) surface of its hard shell, or exoskeleton, is smooth. During mating season, females molt (shed their exoskeleton), and males search for molting females to mate with. They prey or scavenge on worms, shrimp, small clams, fish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14520,"template":"","class_list":["post-14519","species","type-species","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDungeness crab | Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/dungeness-crab\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dungeness crab | Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ranging from red-brown to purple in color, the Dungeness crab has an oval body with eight legs and two claws. 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