Edible Crab

Name: Edible Crab

Scientific name: Cancer pagurus

Category: Marine

Nature Stars: 50

What are nature stars?

About: The typical crab, with a broad body up to 25cm across. A pale orangey-brown in colour, paler underneath, with black tips to the front pair of pincers. Lives amongst seaweed and rocks, feeding on smaller animals and detritus.

How to identify: Easily recognised by the combination of its large size and colour.

Where: Found all round our shores.

Fantastic fact: 10,000 tonnes of Edible Crab are harvested from the English Channel every year. That's a lot of crab sandwiches!

Photograph credit: José Antonio Gil Martínez