The Western Australian spiny lobster, and the basis of the country's largest single-species fishery. Juveniles migrate across open sand in numbers in the autumn.
Carapace eight to ten centimetres, with the largest recorded at 5.5 kg. Brownish-purple to pale, and the females carry small claws on the fifth pair of walking legs.
The southern rock lobster meets it at the southern edge of the range and has a much squatter, more heavily spined carapace.
The life history is what a diver notices. Juveniles settle in seagrass nurseries and migrate offshore to deeper reef, and during that migration they are pale — the “white” phase.
The annual catch is eight to fifteen thousand tonnes, about a fifth of the value of the whole Australian fishing industry, and it was the first fishery in the world certified by the Marine Stewardship Council.
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.
