Maja squinado
Maja squinado is a species of migratory crab found in the Mediterranean Sea. The appearance of the European spider crab is similar to the much larger Japanese spider crab, although the European spider crab belongs to the family Majidae, and the Japanese spider crab belongs to a different family of crabs, the Macrocheiridae.

Govern de les Illes Balears · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- MajaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Decapoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca
Time the record covers
At least 2.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
6 occurrences of Maja squinado on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
6 occurrences- Pliocene76%
- Pleistocene8%
- Holocene17%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Maja squinado has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
68 taxa- Calappa granulata2 sites
- Ebalia cranchii2 sites
- Pagurus2 sites
- Ristoria pliocaenica2 sites
- Turritella2 sites
- aff. Candidula sp.1 site
- Alectoris rufa1 site
- Anapagurus1 site
- Anser1 site
- Aspa marginata1 site
- Athene noctua1 site
- Bos taurus1 site
- Bufo bufo1 site
- Burhinus oedicnemus1 site
- Buteo buteo1 site
- Cancer pagurus1 site
- Canis familiaris1 site
- Capra hircus1 site
- Carcinus maenas1 site
- Cerastoderma edule1 site
- Cerithium1 site
- Chlamys (Mimachlamys)1 site
- Cimbium olla1 site
- Columba1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Maja squinado, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
4 references- Piacenzian (Pliocene) decapod crustacean faunules from northwest Belgium3
- Animal remains from 17th century Carnide, Lisbon, Portugal.1
- First record of Maja squinado (Herbst, 1788) (Decapoda, Brachyura, Majidae) from the Pliocene of Masserano, Biella (Piemonte, NW Italy)1
- Decapod crustacean fauna from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Arda, Stirone and Enza Rivers (Piacenza, Parma and Reggio Emilia Provinces, N Italy)1
Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Maja squinado
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Govern de les Illes Balears
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Maja squinado was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMaja through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Herbst 1788)