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Crab

Velvet Swimming Crab

Necora puber

Necora puber (Linnaeus, 1767) · Polybiidae WoRMS 107398

Reference photos

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Feisty and quick to raise its claws. The shell is covered in fine velvety fur, the back legs end in flattened swimming paddles, and the eyes are a startling red. Brownish, on sheltered rocky shores.

Depth

From the intertidal down to about 70 m, mostly in shallow water

Size

Carapace up to about 8 cm across; males 78-96 mm wide, females 68-92 mm

Habitat

Stony and rocky ground, in rockpools and under boulders, not on mud; most abundant on moderately sheltered shores

Behaviour

Fast-moving and unusually aggressive, often meeting a diver head-on in a fighting stance with claws and swimming legs raised

Diet

I eat

  • Brown algae, which makes up much of the diet in shallow water, with the animal share of it rising with depth
  • Invertebrates, chiefly crustaceans and molluscs, including shelled snails up to about 2.5 cm long
  • Live prey run down as an agile hunter, such as prawns and small fish, and carrion

Where you'd find it

Found around most of Britain and Ireland, though less often in 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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