Golden crab (Chaceon fenneri)

Description: The golden crab is a bit of an outcast among other deep sea crabs because it is golden in color instead of red, the typical color of crabs found deep in the ocean. Golden crabs are also quite large and tasty, and they don’t even lose their golden tone when cooked. Golden crabs have recently gained popularity with diners, but these crabs are quite tricky to harvest. They tend to hide deep within coral reefs and are harvested in a commercial trap fishery that has to set trap lines that are regularly 2000 feet long in the Atlantic. There is not a fishery for these crabs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Figure 1: Approximate depth range of Golden crab (black box). Slope of seafloor is a generalized representation of the Gulf of Mexico shelf and outer continental shelf.