A flat red crab of the surge zone on southern rock, moving fast and sideways across vertical faces.
Carapace to about 7 cm across. Square and red-brown with a deeply cleft four-toothed front, pale knobs on the pincers, yellowish ridges and felt-like rows of hair down the legs, and green eyes.
The other square-bodied crab on the same rock has smooth hairless legs and an uncleft front.
Sources give the depth as nought to eight metres and nought to fifty; either way it is a shallow crevice and ledge animal. It grazes bryozoans, sponges and hydroids.
It is collected as fishing bait, which is where the name comes from.
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.
