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 in the family Lithodidae that are chiefly found in deep waters.[2] King crabs are not true crabs and are generally thought to be derived from hermit crab ancestors within the Paguridae, which may explain the asymmetry still found in the adult forms.[3] This ancestry is supported by several anatomical peculiarities which are present only in king crabs and hermit crabs.[4] Although some doubt still exists about this hypothesis, king crabs are the most widely quoted example of carcinisation among the Decapoda.[4] 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][5][6]

  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 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. ^ 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.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Klaus et al. 2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).