collected or available for species identi- 

 fication and comparison with organisms pre- 

 sent in the stomachs, these organisms in 

 most cases were identified only to the class 

 or order level. We express our appreciation 

 to Dr. Paul Illg of the Department of Zool- 

 ogy of the University of Washington for his 

 verifications of many of our identifications 

 of the food organisms. Remains of organisms 

 which apparently, because of decomposition 

 rather than digestive action, had been dead 

 prior to being ingested by the crabs, as 

 well as the remains of animals which were 

 alive prior to capture, were found in the 

 stomachs . 



In addition to the estimation of per- 

 centage of fullness, tabulations were made 

 of the frequency of occurrence of the majox 

 food groups. In the determination of this 

 frequency, each food group present in a 

 stomach, even when represented by several 

 organisms, was considered to have had an 

 occurrence of one. 



Among the food groups represented, 

 molluscs, present in 69.0 percent of the 

 stomachs examined, are the major food item — 

 pelecypod remains dominating those of gas- 

 tropods. Echinoderms rank second, appearing 

 in 42.2 percent of the crabs. Representa- 

 tives of the phylum include asteroids, 

 ophiuroids, and echinoids of the sub-order 

 Clypeastrina. In contrast to reports in the 

 available literature, no regular echinoids 

 (Hyman 1955) were present. This lack may 

 be only coincidence, as regular echinoids 

 are most commonly found in rocky areas, and 

 the majority of our samples were not taken 

 from these areas. The third most abundzint 

 food group is the decapod crustaceans, which 

 were present in 22.8 percent of the stomachs, 

 primarily represented by the sub-order 

 Reptantia. Other groups in the order of 

 their abundaince include polychaete worms 

 (17.5 percent), algae (14.3 percent, crusta- 

 ceans, excluding decapods, (16.0 percent), 

 and coelenterates (3.0 percent). Foramini- 

 fera, nematode worms, tunicates, echiuroids , 

 fish and other groups were present occasion- 

 ally but not often enough to be considered, 

 on the basis of present information, foods 

 of any relative importance. Possibly these 

 organisms in some instances had been carried 

 into the crab stomachs as food of other food 

 organisms. 



present in many of the stomachs. At least 

 with regard to king crabs of southeastern 

 Bering Sea, this causes us to question his 

 proposition that algae occur only as a food 

 of other organisms. Sand, which appeared 

 in practically all of his samples, was pre- 

 sent only occasionally in our samples, thus 

 leading us to believe that sand may not be 

 a chosen item, but rather one of coinci- 

 dence. Also, Feniuk's report indicates 

 that the echinoderms play only a minor role 

 in the diet of the king crab of the Kam- 

 chatka region, which is in contrast to our 

 data on the southeastern Bering Sea crabs. 



Our study, like Feniuk's, shows that 

 the sexes exhibit no food preferences. 

 Table 3 gives the percentages of frequency 

 of occurrence of food groups for males and 

 females . 



Table 3. — Frequency of occurrence of food 

 groups in 169 male and 160 female crabs. 



Contrary to the findings of Feniuk, 

 we found relatively large amounts of alga 



ae 



Chi-square tests show no statistically 

 significant differences in the frequency of 

 food group occurrence between the sexes 

 with the exception of the Coelenterata, and 

 this exception cannot be considered reli- 

 able because of the smallness of the sample. 

 Limitations of this preliminary study pro- 

 hibit further comparison of food preferences, 

 if any, exhibited by newly molted crabs and 

 crabs approaching the molt, or by various 

 size groups of crabs. 



SUMMARY 



It appears that the major food items 

 of the southeastern Bering Sea king crabs, 

 of the sizes studied, are molluscs and 

 echinoderms. On the basis of sex, these 

 crabs do not seem to show a differential 



