Giant Spider Crab

• GeneralThe largest arthropod in the world: 3.8 m from leg tip to leg tip.
• récordIt has the greatest leg span of any known living arthropod, and can exceed 3.7 metres between the tips of its outstretched front legs.
• It has the greatest leg span of any living arthropod: up to 3.7 or 3.8 metres from claw to claw.
• The body, by contrast, is modest: the carapace does not exceed about 40 cm. Almost all its size is in the legs.
• By mass it is the second-heaviest living arthropod, at up to 19 kg, behind only the American lobster.
• Males have much longer claws than females, longer than the rest of their legs.
• Recent work on its larvae and its DNA has moved it out of the family Inachidae and into one of its own, Macrocheiridae.
• It is the target of a small-scale fishery that has made conservation measures necessary.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - articulated calcareous exoskeleton (crustacean)

Habitat and environment

Continental slope bottoms (150-800 m)

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Macrocheira kaempferi

The pins mark the parks and dive sites where its presence is documented.