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)
- A species of shallow-water king crab (Cryptolithodes typicus) native to coastal regions of the northeastern Pacific Ocean
- Hart, Josephine F. L. (May 1965), “Life History and Larval Development of Cryptolithodes typicus Brandt (Decapoda, Anomura) from British Columbia”, in Crustaceana, volume 8, issue 3, DOI:, JSTOR 20102652, 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 2018-04-06: “The butterfly crab's range extends from northern Alaska to southern California.”