ABSTRACT
The common name, king crab, is most frequently associated with the commercially important “red,” “golden,” “southern,” “false,” and “spiny” lithodid crabs of the genera Paralithodes, Lithodes, and Paralomis, some of the largest crabs in the infraorder Anomura. However, these are but a very few of the 129 species included in the 15 genera presently assigned to the two families in the superfamily Lithodoidea. The currently recognized valid genera and species are listed in Table 2.1. This list has been taken from McLaughlin et al. (2010), and further information regarding primary synonyms and sources of original descriptions may be found in that publication.
