Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Crustacea

Subclass: Malacostraca

Order: Decapoda

Suborder: Pleocyemata

Infraorder: Anomura

Family: Lithodidae

 

Norwegian: trollkrabber

(Leksvik - The Trondheim fjord / 15 meters / 4.08.2001)

Just to make it clear, the king crabs are not really crabs, but anomurans like squat lobsters and hermit crabs. In Norwegian waters only two kinds of king crabs exist, the deep sea king crab and the gigantic  Alaskan king crab, Paralithodes camtschatica. The Alaskan king crab is currently sprawling from Russia and southwards along the Norwegian coast, after being introduced on the coast of Murmansk for food production in the sixties.