Neolithodes grimaldii

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"Porcupine crab" redirects here. For the species from the northwest Pacific Ocean that sometimes is kept in public aquariums, see Paralomis histrix.

Porcupine crab
Illustration from Ray Lankester's A Treatise on Zoology above, museum specimen below (living are red)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Pleocyemata
Infraorder: Anomura
Family: Lithodidae
Genus: Neolithodes
Species:
N. grimaldii
Binomial name
Neolithodes grimaldii
Synonyms[1]

Neolithodes grimaldii, the porcupine crab,[2] is a species of king crab.[1] It is found in cold, deep waters in the North Atlantic, often caught as bycatch in fisheries for Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides). As suggested by its common name, the carapace and legs are covered in long spines.[3]

Description

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The porcupine crab is dark red in colour.[3] It is covered in spines, which are long and robust in large adults and very long and thin in juveniles and medium-sized individuals.[4] The rest of the surface is mostly smooth.[4] Its prominent rostrum at the front consists of a long basal spine and two well-developed dorsal spines to either side.[4] Its carapace length up to 18 cm (7.1 in) and can weigh as much as 2.28 kg (5.0 lb).[3] In healthy adults, average carapace length is about 9.5 cm (3.7 in) in females and about 12 cm (4.7 in) in males;[5] however, they are often parasitised by the sterilising barnacle Briarosaccus callosus (family Peltogastridae), which causes both sexes to grow up to be significantly smaller than healthy individuals.[6][7] Its walking legs are long; the second pair is the longest, and its third walking legs are more than three times as long as the carapace.[8]

Distribution and habitat

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The porcupine crab is found on muddy bottoms on the continental slope in the North Atlantic.[9] In the western Atlantic, it ranges from eastern Canada and Greenland south as far as North Carolina in the United States. In the eastern Atlantic, it ranges from Iceland to Madeira, Portugal and Cape Verde, including the Porcupine Seabight and Rockall Trough off Ireland.[10][11][failed verification] It has been recorded at depths of 329–5,230 m (1,079–17,159 ft).[10][12] Based on radio tagging, some individuals will stay in a region for months, but others may move quite long distances.[2]

Taxonomy

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Neolithodes grimaldii was first described in 1894 by carcinologists Alphonse Milne-Edwards and Eugène Louis Bouvier while performing research for Albert I, Prince of Monaco of the House of Grimaldi.[13] Initially calling it Lithodes Grimaldii, they differentiated the holotype – about 45 mm (1.8 in) long and taken from the island of Newfoundland – from the recently described Lithodes agassizii[a] by its more prominent spines.[13] They subsequently placed it into its own genus, Neolithodes, on account of it sharing many features with Lithodes but differing in its abdomen, which they compared to the monotypic genus Dermaturus.[14] The following year, carcinologist James Everard Benedict described Lithodes goodei from the East Coast of the United States, again comparing it to L. agassizii,[a] but this was later shown to be a junior synonym of N. grimaldii.[15][16]

N. grimaldii, along with N. capensis, N. diomedeae, N. vinogradovi, and N. yaldwyni, belongs to a subgroup of Neolithodes in which "the carapace and [walking] legs at most bear scattered, minute secondary spines or tubercles amongst the primary dorsal spines".[17] N. grimaldii's relationship to other king crabs can be seen in the following cladogram:[18]


Lithodidae cladogram
Lithodidae

Paralithodes brevipes

Paralithodes camtschaticus

Phyllolithodes/Rhinolithodes

Acantholithodes hispidus

Placetron wosnessenskii

Cryptolithodes
Hapalogaster

Oedignathus inermis


Fishing

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The porcupine crab is frequently caught as bycatch for Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides).[3][19] In 1996, approximately 767 tonnes (845 short tons; 1,691,000 lb) were caught and discarded in Canadian waters alone.[20] Their survival rate is about 75% if they are not injured while being captured and released from the bottom gillnet; this decreases to about 30% when injured from rough handling.[21]

Attempts have been made by fisheries since the 1990s to target the porcupine crab, which has been successfully processed and marketed in test studies.[22] However, low catch rates when using baited pots – considered the only viable option[2] – have hindered these attempts.[22] Additionally, attempts to sell porcupine crabs caught as bycatch have failed due to the "extremely time consuming" process of removing them from the gillnet.[2] Due to the porcupine crab population's high biomass, evidenced by the amount of bycatch, researchers believe that a fishery can still develop around the porcupine crab if its behavior is better-understood.[2][23]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b Now Neolithodes agassizii

References

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  1. ^ a b De Grave, Sammy (27 January 2022). "Neolithodes grimaldii (A Milne-Edwards & Bouvier, 1894)". WoRMS. World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 21 October 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e Davidson & Hussey 2019, p. 1.
  3. ^ a b c d "Neolithodes grimaldii" (PDF). Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 3 July 2015.
  4. ^ a b c Macpherson 1988, p. 44.
  5. ^ Furey 2016, p. 45.
  6. ^ Furey 2016, p. 17.
  7. ^ Furey 2016, p. 30.
  8. ^ Macpherson 1988, p. 47.
  9. ^ Macpherson 1988, p. 45.
  10. ^ a b Quigley, Declan T. G.; Flannery, Kevin (April 1997). "Neolithodes grimaldii Milne Edwards & Bouvier 1894 (Lithodes goodei Benedict 1895) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Anomura) in Irish offshore waters". Irish Naturalists' Journal. 25 (10): 373–374. JSTOR 25536085. Retrieved 14 May 2020 – via ResearchGate.
  11. ^ Furey, Greg (December 2016). Prevalence and effects of rhizocephalan (Cirripedia: Briarosaccus callosus) parasitism and assessment of post-capture survival using the reflex action mortality predictor (RAMP) method on the deep water Porcupine crab (Neolithodes grimaldii) captured on the Labrador Shelf in the Northwest Atlantic (PDF) (Masters of Science thesis). Memorial University of Newfoundland. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 May 2020. Retrieved 14 May 2020 – via Memorial University Libraries.
  12. ^ Williams, Austin B.; Wigley, Roland L. (December 1977). Distribution of Decapod Crustacea Off Northeastern United States Based on Specimens at the Northeast Fisheries Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts (PDF) (Report). NOAA Technical Report NMFS. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. p. 9. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 May 2020. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  13. ^ a b Milne-Edwards & Bouvier 1894, pp. 62–63.
  14. ^ Milne-Edwards & Bouvier 1894, pp. 91–92.
  15. ^ Benedict 1895, p. 479–480.
  16. ^ Ahyong, Shane T. (13 May 2022). "Lithodes goodei Benedict, 1895". WoRMS. World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 19 May 2025.
  17. ^ Ahyong & Dawson 2006, p. 52.
  18. ^ 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.
  19. ^ He 2005, p. 35.
  20. ^ He 2005, p. 42.
  21. ^ Furey 2016, p. 59.
  22. ^ a b He 2005, p. 36.
  23. ^ Furey 2016, p. 1.

Works cited

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