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Ocean animals

Porcupine Crab

Amazing fact

The porcupine crab is sometimes caught in bottom trawls or bottom gillnets.

鳥羽水族館
Porcupine Crab in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

The porcupine crab is sometimes caught in bottom trawls or bottom gillnets.

Source鳥羽水族館 — イガグリガニ

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THE REAL WORLD

The real Porcupine Crab

Scientific name
Paralomis histrix
Japanese name
イガグリガニ
Group
Ocean animals
Class
Malacostraca
Order
Decapoda
Family
Lithodidae
Genus
Paralomis
Facts about the real animal.
01

It lives on the seafloor of Japanese seas from Tokyo Bay to the Amakusa Sea.

鳥羽水族館 — イガグリガニ
02

Its spines are very strong, so it hurts to hold it with bare hands.

鳥羽水族館 — イガグリガニ

Where the Porcupine Crab has been recorded

World map with dots where the Porcupine Crab has been recorded
Each dot marks a place with observations or specimens shared on GBIF. Some records are of animals that strayed or were brought by people, so the dots are not always where the animal lives.

Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF

Where it livesJapanOcean

Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.

Names around the world

简体中文
栗刺仿石蟹
繁體中文
栗刺仿石蟹

Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.

Sources and how we check

We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.

The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.

This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.

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