Blue and green legs banded in white, with antennae longer than the animal.
A spiny lobster to about 40 cm, the carapace green-black with fine white lines, the legs banded blue-black and white, and the tail segments crossed by pale bands. Two antennae longer than the body project forward and are constantly in motion; behind them a pair of thick white-banded antennular flagella sits above the eyes. It has no claws — spiny lobsters have none — and defends itself with the spines and by retreating.
Spends the day pushed backwards into a ledge, a crevice or a piece of wreckage with only the antennae protruding, which is how one is found, and comes out at night to walk over rubble and sand feeding on molluscs and carrion. Groups share a den. It produces a rasping sound by drawing a soft pad at the base of each antenna across a file on the carapace, audible to a diver at close range. Recorded from the shallows to about 25 m. Heavily fished across the region, so its abundance at a site says something about how that site is managed.
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.
