''Lithodes maja'', the Norway king crab or trollkrabbe, is a species of

king crab King crabs are a taxon of decapod crustaceans chiefly found in cold seas. Because of their large size and the taste of their meat, many species are widely caught and sold as food, the most common being the red king crab (''Paralithodes camtsch ...

which occurs in colder North Atlantic waters off Europe and North America. It is found along the entire coast of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

, including Svalbard, ranging south into the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

and

Kattegat The Kattegat (; sv, Kattegatt ) is a sea area bounded by the Jutlandic peninsula in the west, the Danish Straits islands of Denmark and the Baltic Sea to the south and the provinces of Bohuslän, Västergötland, Halland and Skåne in Sweden ...

, the northern half of the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

(with a few records off southwest England), and around the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

, and off south-eastern

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

. In the West Atlantic, it ranges from the

Davis Strait Davis Strait is a northern arm of the Atlantic Ocean that lies north of the Labrador Sea. It lies between mid-western Greenland and Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada. To the north is Baffin Bay. The strait was named for the English explorer John ...

between Greenland and Canada south to

The Carolinas The Carolinas are the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina, considered collectively. They are bordered by Virginia to the north, Tennessee to the west, and Georgia to the southwest. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east. Combining Nor ...

in the United States. The carapace is almost circular and may reach a width of up to . The whole body is brown or orange and is covered with large spikes. It lives on both soft and hard bottoms, at depths of . Like most king crabs, females are asymmetrical, with the left side of the

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the to ...

considerably larger than the right, although specimens with the reverse of this are occasionally found. The low rate of

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

production by this species, in comparison to species fished in the North Pacific, limits its abundance, making it unsuitable for commercial exploitation. However with the collapse of the Alaskan crab fishery (Red King Crab season has been closed for a second straight season 2023, Snow crab is now closed also). Sig Hanson of Deadliest Catch fame is currently in Norway trying to develop a market and fishery on ''Deadliest Catch: The Viking Returns''. According to their physiological adaptations capabilities, the ideal larval developmental temperatures was thought to between , however, from experiment they discovered the optimal temperature is instead. In addition, according to Anger K on the temperature and larval development testing, the complete larval development takes 7 weeks at a constant temperature at .

References

Anger, K. “Physiological and Biochemical Changes during Lecithotrophic Larval Development and Early Juvenile Growth in the Northern Stone Crab, Lithodes Maja (Decapoda: Anomura).” SpringerLink, Springer-Verlag, 13 Jan. 1996, link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00347453.

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3232159 King crabs Crustaceans of the Atlantic Ocean Crustaceans described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus