The large red spiny lobster of the temperate south, in crevices by day and out on open reef at night. Heavily fished, so it is common only in reserves.
Carapace to about 23 cm in males and 18 in females, total length to 58 and 43. Dark red-orange above with a paler yellowish abdomen, or grey-green-brown, on a squat heavily spined carapace.
The eastern rock lobster is green and much more elongate.
Five to two hundred metres on reef and the continental shelf, nocturnal, leaving cover at night to feed.
Listed as Least Concern and quota-managed. It is worth about a quarter of a billion Australian dollars a year in Australia and about 180 million New Zealand dollars across the Tasman.
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.
