It was named by Mary Jane Rathbun, a Smithsonian employee who became one of the leading authorities on crab taxonomy.

She named the crab for Spencer Baird, her mentor, who in the 1880s as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and head of the United States Fish Commission, had given her her first position.

Females will incubate fertilized eggs for a full year before hatching during spring plankton blooming season.

Before the passage of the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 much of the Bering Sea tanner crab was caught by Japanese and Soviet fishing vessels.

[5] In addition to overfishing, researchers from the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences have hypothesized that prevailing winds may affect crab population numbers from one year to the next.