King crab

King crabs
Temporal range: Miocene–Recent
Paralithodes californiensis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Pleocyemata
(unranked): Reptantia
Infraorder: Anomura
Superfamily: Paguroidea
Samouelle, 1819
Family: Lithodidae
Samouelle, 1819
Genera[1]

Hapalogastrinae Brandt, 1850

Lithodinae Samouelle, 1819

King crabs often feature prominent spines.

King crabs are decapod crustaceans of the family Lithodidae that are chiefly found in deep waters and are adapted to cold environments.[2][3] They are composed of two subfamilies: Lithodinae, which tend to inhabit deep waters, are globally distributed, and comprise the majority of the family's species diversity;[3][4] and Hapalogastrinae, which are endemic to the North Pacific and inhabit exclusively shallow waters.[3] King crabs superficially resemble true crabs but are generally understood to be closest to the pagurid hermit crabs.[2][4][5] This placement of king crabs among the hermit crabs is supported by several anatomical peculiarities which are present only in king crabs and hermit crabs.[6] Although some doubt still exists about this hypothesis, king crabs are the most widely quoted example of carcinisation among decapods.[6] Several species of king crabs, especially in Alaskan and southern South American waters, are targeted by commercial fisheries and have been subject to overfishing.[2][7][8]


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ De Grave, Sammy; Pentcheff, N. Dean; Ahyong, Shane T.; et al. (2009). "A classification of living and fossil genera of decapod crustaceans" (PDF). The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Suppl. 21: 1–109. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-06.
  2. ^ a b c Poore, Gary C. B.; Ahyong, Shane T. (2023). Marine Decapod Crustacea: A Guide to Families and Genera of the World. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-4863-1178-1.
  3. ^ a b c Hall, Sally; Thatje, Sven (October 2009). "Global bottlenecks in the distribution of marine Crustacea: temperature constraints in the family Lithodidae" (PDF). Journal of Biogeography. 36 (11): 2125–2135. Bibcode:2009JBiog..36.2125H. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2009.02153.x. Archived (PDF) from the original on 29 May 2023.
  4. ^ a b Noever, Christoph; Glenner, Henrik (2017-07-05). "The origin of king crabs: hermit crab ancestry under the magnifying glass" (PDF). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 182 (2): 300–318. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlx033. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-07-16 – via the University of Copenhagen.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ahyong 2010 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Keiler, Jonas; Richter, Stefan; Wirkner, Christian S. (2013-03-19). "Evolutionary morphology of the hemolymph vascular system in hermit and king crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda: Anomala)". Journal of Morphology. 274 (7): 759–778. doi:10.1002/jmor.20133. PMID 23508935. S2CID 24458262.
  7. ^ Dvoretsky, Alexander G.; Dvoretsky, Vladimir G. (November 2017). "Red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) fisheries in Russian waters: historical review and present status". Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries. 28 (2): 331–353. doi:10.1007/s11160-017-9510-1. ISSN 0960-3166.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Klaus et al. 2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).