Common Box Crab
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
The common box crab is a large member of the box crab group.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Common Box Crab
- Scientific name
- Calappa lophos
- Japanese name
- トラフカラッパ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Malacostraca
- Order
- Decapoda
- Family
- Calappidae
- Genus
- Calappa
Where the name “Common Box Crab” comes from
The name Torafu refers to the dark brown, tiger-like markings on its claw-bearing legs.
沖縄美ら海水族館It lives from Tokyo Bay to Kyushu, around China and Taiwan, and across the Indo-West Pacific.
"Calappa" is a word meaning "coconut," and true to that name, these crabs are shaped like half a coconut.
How the Common Box Crab lives
It becomes active at night. It eats sea snails and other food. During the day, it often buries itself in sand to hide.
沖縄美ら海水族館Basic data
- Range
- Tokyo Bay to Kyushu, China, Taiwan, and the Indo-West Pacific
Where the Common Box 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
- トラフカラッパ
- 简体中文
- 卷折馒头蟹
- 繁體中文
- 卷折饅頭蟹
- 한국어
- 범무늬만두게
- Español
- Cangrejo caja de rayas rojas
- Português (Brasil)
- Caranguejo-cofre-do-Pacífico
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 — トラフカラッパChecked: 2026-11-04
- 沖縄美ら海水族館 — トラフカラッパ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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