butterfly crab

English

Dorsal view of the butterfly crab

Etymology

The nickname "butterfly crab" refers to the crab's butterfly-shaped carapace.

Noun

butterfly crab (plural butterfly crabs)

  1. A species of shallow-water king crab (Cryptolithodes typicus) native to coastal regions of the northeastern Pacific Ocean
    • Hart, Josephine F. L. (1965 May) “Life History and Larval Development of Cryptolithodes typicus Brandt (Decapoda, Anomura) from British Columbia”, in Crustaceana, volume 8, number 3, →DOI, →JSTOR, pages 255–276:The turtle or butterfly crab, Cryptolithodes typicus Brandt, 1849, is a crustacean of [...] the family Lithodidae.
    • Fretwell, Kelly, Starzomski, Brian (2015) “Butterfly crab • Cryptolithodes typicus”, in Biodiversity of the Central Coast, archived from the original on April 6, 2018:The butterfly crab's range extends from northern Alaska to southern California.
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