The large inshore spiny lobster, banded legs and pale spots, out on soft ground at night.
The largest spiny lobster on these coasts, recorded to about 50 cm in total length, though most animals seen are half that. The body is olive to blue-green, each abdominal segment carrying a pair of large pale spots, and the legs are boldly banded in dark and cream. The abdomen is smooth and unbanded apart from those paired spots, where the painted spiny lobster carries a clean pale band across each segment, and the antennae are long, thick and covered in forward-pointing spines.
Unlike most of the family it tolerates turbid inshore water of reduced salinity, and it is found around wrecks, pipes, rubble and soft bottoms as readily as on reef. It shelters through the day and moves out onto open ground at night. Juveniles turn up in very shallow water and inside harbours. Recorded from the shallows to about 40 m.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
