Common Moon Crab
Amazing fact
The common moon crab has large spines sticking out from the sides of its shell.
ふなばし三番瀬環境学習館
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The common moon crab has large spines sticking out from the sides of its shell.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Common Moon Crab
- Scientific name
- Matuta victor
- Japanese name
- キンセンガニ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Malacostraca
- Order
- Decapoda
- Family
- Matutidae
- Genus
- Matuta
It lives widely from south of Tokyo Bay to the Ryukyu Islands, China, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
How the Common Moon Crab lives
It is a crab that lives on sandy ground. All its legs apart from its claws are shaped for swimming, allowing it to swim through the water. Its flat, oar-shaped legs let it burrow quickly into sand.
新潟大学佐渡自然共生科学センター臨海実験所ふなばし三番瀬環境学習館Basic data
- Range
- From south of Tokyo Bay to the Ryukyu Islands, China, and the Indo-Pacific
Where the Common Moon 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
- キンセンガニ
- 简体中文
- 顽强黎明蟹
- 繁體中文
- 頑強黎明蟹
- 한국어
- 금게
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Ketam-bulan biasa
- Türkçe
- Bayağı Ay Yengeci
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — キンセンガニChecked: 2026-11-04
- 新潟大学佐渡自然共生科学センター臨海実験所 — キンセンガニChecked: 2026-11-07
- ふなばし三番瀬環境学習館 — キンセンガニChecked: 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.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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