Maja squinado

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 . It 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 . Females can produce up to 4 broods per year .

Migrations generally take place in autumn , with some crabs covering over 100 miles (160 km) in eight months .

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 Serbia and Montenegro, Denmark and Morocco , although official production figures are open to doubt . The European Union imposes a minimum landing size of 120 mm for M. squinado , 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 .

All crabs are vulnerable to predation when moulting, and M. squinado becomes gregarious around that time, presumably for defense against predators .

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 . The specific epithet squinado derives from the Provençal name for the species — "squinado", "esquinade", "esquinado" or "esquinadoun" — recorded by Rondelet as early as 1554 .

Translation

The phrase "Maja squinado" occurs as such in the following languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese.

Translation(s) in other languages: French: Araignée de mer, Galician: Centola, Dutch: Grote spinkrab, Norman: Pihangne, Slovenian: Veliki morski pajek.