• Norwegian: trollkrabber

Characteristics:

Mainly because of their large size, the king crabs, also called stone crabs, are of significant commercial interest in many countries. Another common feature to many species is the spiny carapace and legs.

Taxonomy:

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. It destroys virtually all life behind it, leaving the sea-floor like a wasteland.