Alaskan red king crab

붉은킹크랩

A giant crab of cold northern seas such as Alaska, with a leg span that can reach 1.5 m. It is not a true crab but a relative of hermit crabs, which is why you only see six walking legs besides the claws.

See it on the 3D globe →

At a glance

Class: Crustaceans
Diet: Eats both plants and meat (omnivore)
Habitat: coasts

Quick answers

Where does the Alaskan red king crab live?

It lives in coasts of the Pacific Ocean.

What does the Alaskan red king crab eat?

Its diet: eats both plants and meat (omnivore).

The red king crab, also called the Kamchatka crab or Alaskan king crab, is the largest king crab. It lives in the cold waters of the North Pacific, from the Bering Sea south to the Gulf of Alaska, and around Kamchatka, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan.

It can reach a leg span of 1.8 metres and a weight of 12.7 kilograms, though most caught today are smaller; the average male landed in the Bering Sea weighs about 2.9 kilograms. It is not a true crab but belongs to a family related to hermit crabs. It is named for the red it turns when cooked, since a living crab is more burgundy.

Where it lives

Young crabs stay in shallow water, and after about two years they move down to 20 to 50 metres and gather in tight groups called pods, with hundreds of crabs. Adults usually live deeper than 200 metres on sandy and muddy bottoms, and migrate to shallower water in winter or early spring to mate. Predators include Pacific cod, halibut, sculpins, salmon, sea otters and seals.

Fishing and a new home

It is the most valued of the king crabs, mainly caught in the Bering Sea and Norton Sound. Alaskan crab fishing is among the most dangerous jobs, and catches fell sharply after the 1980s for reasons that are still debated, such as overfishing, warmer water and predators. In the 1960s the Soviet Union brought red king crabs to the Barents Sea, and they have since spread along the coast of Norway.