Rugose Squat Lobster

The Rugose Squat Lobster, Munida rugosa, also called the plated lobster, is an orange decapod crustacean marked with darker transverse bands, growing to about ten centimeters long with a carapace, including the rostrum, of about thirty millimeters; its rostrum carries a central spine flanked by two shorter ones, and it has thread-like antennae and white-tipped claws and walking legs. It lives on the seabed to depths of one hundred fifty meters, sheltering in cracks or beneath boulders, across the western Mediterranean Sea, the waters around Madeira, and the northeastern Atlantic Ocean including the North Sea, generally north of twenty five degrees north latitude.