• Kingdom: Animalia
  • Phylum: Arthropoda
  • Subphylum: Crustacea
  • Class: Malacostraca
  • Subclass: Eumalacostraca
  • Superorder: Eucarida
  • Order: Decapoda
  • Suborder: Pleocyemata
  • Infraorder: Brachyura
  • Family: Cancridae
  • Scientific name: Cancer pagurus
  • Norwegian: taskekrabbe

Characteristics:

You can hardly confuse grown individuals of the edible crab with any other species. It has two powerful claws and the red-brown color is typical. Individuals exceeding 5 kg have been caught. The females are biggest, a carapace length of 98 mm is registered. The biggest male carapace is 60 mm. Juvenile crabs (smaller than 15 mm) are white.

Habitat:

The edible crab thrives on all kind of substrates, hiding under rocks or digging itself down in soft sandy or muddy substrate. It is registered from the tidal zone and down to more than 90 meters.

Distribution:

It is very common in the East Atlantic Ocean, from Nordland, Norway in the north to the Mediterranean and the Azores in the south.