Tri-spine horseshoe crab
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
A horseshoe crab’s new shell is folded up inside its old shell.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Tri-spine horseshoe crab
- Scientific name
- Tachypleus tridentatus
- Japanese name
- カブトガニ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Family
- Limulidae
- Genus
- Tachypleus
Where the name “Tri-spine horseshoe crab” comes from
Its name is thought to come from its helmet-like covering and crab-like claws.
笠岡市立カブトガニ博物館Despite 'crab' in its name, it is a close relative of spiders. It lives in the seas of the Seto Inland Sea, northern Kyushu, Taiwan, China and Southeast Asia.
When it swims near the surface, it swims on its back, moving slowly while steering with its sword-like tail.
It eats animals such as marine worms and clams. Its mouth is on the underside of its body, so it is hard to see it eating.
How the Tri-spine horseshoe crab lives
It moves around the seabed and eats things caught on its legs. It burrows into mud to rest. As the water cools, it burrows in deeper water offshore and hibernates without eating. A male and female cling together and lay eggs in holes dug in the sandy shore.
環境省笠岡市立カブトガニ博物館Basic data
- Diet
- Ragworms, clams, and other animals笠岡市立カブトガニ博物館
- Range
- Seto Inland Sea, northern Kyushu, Taiwan, eastern China, Philippines, Vietnam, and elsewhere笠岡市立カブトガニ博物館
- Conservation status in Japan
- Critically Endangered or Endangered (CR+EN)Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Red List 2020
Where the Tri-spine horseshoe crab has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
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
- 日本語
- カブトガニ
- 简体中文
- 中华鲎
- 繁體中文
- 三棘鱟
- 한국어
- 세가시투구게
- Español
- Cangrejo herradura chino
- Français
- Limule d'Asie du Sud-Est
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Belangkas tiga-duri
- Tiếng Việt
- Sam đuôi tam giác
- Türkçe
- Çin Atnalı Kıskaçlısı
- ไทย
- แมงดาญี่ปุ่น
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 笠岡市立カブトガニ博物館 — カブトガニの生態Checked: 2026-11-03
- 笠岡市立カブトガニ博物館 — カブトガニに近いなかまChecked: 2026-11-03
- 笠岡市立カブトガニ博物館 — カブトガニの分布Checked: 2026-11-03
- 環境省 — カブトガニChecked: 2026-11-05
- Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Red List 2020Checked: 2026-11-07
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.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
The conservation status in Japan is the category in the Red Lists of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan, which assess the risk of extinction for wild animals in Japan.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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