butterfly crab
English
[edit]
Etymology
[edit]The nickname "butterfly crab" refers to the crab's butterfly-shaped carapace.
Noun
[edit]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. (1965 May) “Life History and Larval Development of Cryptolithodes typicus Brandt (Decapoda, Anomura) from British Columbia”, in Crustaceana, volume 8, number 3, , →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[1], archived from the original on April 6, 2018: “The butterfly crab's range extends from northern Alaska to southern California.”