Maja squinado (the European spider crab, spiny spider crab or spinous spider crab) is a species of migratory crab found in the north-east Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea.^[1]

Diet

M. squinado feeds on a great variety of organisms, with seaweeds and molluscs dominating in winter, and echinoderms such as sea urchins and sea cucumbers in summer.^[2]

Behaviour

Migrations generally take place in autumn,^[3] with some crabs covering over 100 miles (160 km) in eight months.^[4] All crabs are vulnerable to predation when moulting, and M. squinado becomes gregarious around that time, presumably for defense against predators.^[5] Females can produce up to 4 broods per year.^[6]

Fishery

M. squinado is the subject of commercial fishery, with over 5,000 tonnes caught annually, more than 70% of it off the coast of France, over 10% off the coast of the United Kingdom, 6% from the Channel Islands, 3% from each of Spain and Ireland, 2% from Croatia, 1% from Portugal, and the remainder coming from Montenegro, Denmark and Morocco,^[7] although official production figures are open to doubt.^[1] The European Union imposes a minimum landing size of 120 mm for M. squinado,^[8] and some individual countries have other regulations, such as a ban on landing egg-bearing females in Spain and a closed season in France and the Channel Islands.^[1]

Taxonomy

A spiny spider crab swimming in a marine reserve in the Balearic Islands

A review of the species complex around M. squinado was able to differentiate between specimens from the Mediterranean Sea and those from the Atlantic, and concluded that the Atlantic specimens were a separate species, called Maja brachydactyla Balss, 1922.^[9] The specific epithet squinado derives from the Provençal name for the species – squinado, esquinade, esquinado or esquinadoun — recorded by Rondelet as early as 1554.^[4]

Notes

References

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