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Crab

Spider Crab

Majoidea

Hyas araneus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Oregoniidae WoRMS 107322

Reference photos

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A long-legged crab whose shell narrows at the front to a short forked rostrum projecting between the eyes. Legs 2 to 5 are long, slender and spider-like, the first pair carries the pincers, and the shell is usually covered with algae or encrusting invertebrates. The great spider crab has a pear-shaped shell and is found around all British coasts, though it is less common in the south and west. The larger common spider crab has a circular to oval shell, broad at the back and narrow at the front, reaches 20 cm in body length, and lives in south and west Britain and Ireland.

Depth

From extreme low water down to about 50 m, and recorded as deep as 120 m; most abundant shallower than 70 m

Size

Body up to 20 cm long; carapace to 200 mm in males and 175 mm in females; the great spider crab's carapace up to 10 cm long

Habitat

Rocks, seaweed and coarse sandy ground from the lower shore downwards, and on most seabed types

Behaviour

A seabed scavenger whose shell is usually covered with algae; adults winter below 50 m and return to coastal waters from April to June

Diet

I eat

  • A scavenger on most seabed types, taking carrion, encrusting animals and seaweed
  • Juveniles forage on algal-invertebrate turf in shallow nursery grounds through their first two years

Where you'd find it

Found around most of Britain and Ireland, though less often in the Celtic Sea and the waters west of Ireland.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenNow and thenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

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