''Paralomis dawsoni'' is a species of king crab which lives in

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

, northern

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, and the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

at depths of . Alongside '' P. zealandica'', it is one of the two most common species of ''Paralomis'' in New Zealand. , the Department of Conservation in New Zealand classifies ''P. dawsoni'' as "Naturally Uncommon".

Description

''P. dawsoni'' is orange-red or red-brown in colour and has a subhexagonal

carapace A carapace is a dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tortoises, the unde ...

covered uniformly in blunt

tubercle In anatomy, a tubercle (literally 'small tuber', Latin for 'lump') is any round nodule, small eminence, or warty outgrowth found on external or internal organs of a plant or an animal. In plants A tubercle is generally a wart-like projectio ...

s. Tubercles and coarse spines cover its legs, and its

cheliped A chela ()also called a claw, nipper, or pinceris a pincer-shaped organ at the end of certain limbs of some arthropods. The name comes from Ancient Greek , through Neo-Latin '. The plural form is chelae. Legs bearing a chela are called chelipeds ...

s are especially spinose. It is the largest species of ''Paralomis'' known to occur in New Zealand, with one specimen measured to have a post-pseudorostral carapace length of and a carapace width of .

Etymology

The species name "''dawsoni''" is dedicated to Elliot Watson Dawson of the National Museum of New Zealand.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Crustaceans, Marine life King crabs Crustaceans described in 2001 Marine crustaceans of New Zealand Arthropods of New Caledonia Fauna of the Solomon Islands Anomura of the Pacific Ocean Taxa named by Enrique Macpherson