Maguimithrax spinosissimus
Maguimithrax spinosissimus, also known as the Caribbean king crab, West Indian spider crab, channel clinging crab, reef or spiny spider crab, and coral crab, is a species of spider crab that occurs throughout South Florida and across the Caribbean Islands.

Pc.wiki4 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- MaguimithraxPBDB
- 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 3.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
6 occurrences of Maguimithrax spinosissimus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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- Pliocene17%
- Pleistocene67%
- 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
3 formations
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The named rock units Maguimithrax spinosissimus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Maguimithrax spinosissimus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Maguimithrax spinosissimus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
26 taxa- Mithrax hispidus3 sites
- Mithrax verrucosus2 sites
- Achelous gibbesii1 site
- Achelous sebae1 site
- Albunea1 site
- Calappa1 site
- Calappa gallus1 site
- Carpilius corallinus1 site
- Cycludius maculatus1 site
- Eurypanopeus1 site
- Garthiope spinipes1 site
- Hepatus lineatinus1 site
- Herbstia exserta1 site
- Laleonectes vocans1 site
- Mithraculus forceps1 site
- Mithrax hemphilli1 site
- Myropsis1 site
- Pachygrapsus1 site
- Panopeus herbstii1 site
- Petrochirus1 site
- Petrolisthes1 site
- Ranilia constricta1 site
- Raninoides lamarcki1 site
- Teleophrys ruber1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Maguimithrax spinosissimus, 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- Tertiary and Pleistocene crabs from Barbados and Trinidad3
- Descriptions and Biodiversity of Decapods in the Seroe Domi Formation of Curacao1
- The fossil arthropods of Jamaica1
- Notes on North American Crustacea, in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. No. II1
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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Maguimithrax spinosissimus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Pc.wiki4
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Maguimithrax spinosissimus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itMaguimithrax through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lamarck 1818)