Northwest Dive Club

https://vimeo.com/202536788

Found this upside down gravid red rock crab at the Junkpile a few weeks back
As you can see from the video her mouth parts are moving and there is an occasional movement in her legs. I observed her for several minutes and there was no change in the behavior pattern.
What is going on here?
Is she dying?
Getting ready to for her eggs to hatch?

I sure wish there was a crab expert on this board. Greg Jensen?

Very fascinating! I hope she's ok
Did you see any sea spiders?

Very interesting.
I think I've seen them (at least other crabs) release eggs whilst standing up before. And they twitch down there as they do.

I'm no crab expert, and didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night - so I'm out.

However, the link at the end of your vid to your GPO Interaction vid looked interesting....

https://vimeo.com/195157178

Wow! Way cool encounter. When & where did this happen?

i would say that crab is 99% on the way out of life ... the fact its upside down and not moving means its sick and dying ... if you look at the behavior of a crab , either a red rock or a dungee .. crabs are either in the sand hiding, or out and about walking and eating .. when you approach a crab they go into defensive mode and run off , or throw up some pinchers to say " Hey Back Off !! "

Her eggs are recently extruded (orange) so nowhere near ready to hatch, and wouldn't be doing it in this position anyway.

I can see she has some large barnacles on her- my guess is that she somehow got flipped over and is so top-heavy from barnacles she couldn't right herself, and is too tired from trying to still be kicking.

Thanks Greg!

Mpenders
That was at the Junkpile last February 13th. A couple of octo researchers have weighed in on it and believe it to be an attempted cannibalism event.