Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some are found in freshwater. In addition, a few species of land crabs are eaten, for example Cardisoma guanhumi in the Caribbean. Shellfish are among the most common food allergens.
Homarus gammarus, known as the European lobster or common lobster, is a species of clawed lobster from the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and parts of the Black Sea. It is closely related to the American lobster, H. americanus. It may grow to a length of 60 cm (24 in) and a mass of 6 kilograms (13 lb), and bears a conspicuous pair of claws. In life the lobsters are blue, only becoming "lobster red" on cooking. Mating occurs in the summer, producing eggs which are carried by the females for up to a year before hatching into planktonic larvae. Homarus gammarus is a highly esteemed food, and is widely caught using lobster pots, mostly around the British Isles.
Cancer pagurus, commonly known as the edible crab or brown crab, is a species of crab found in the North Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, and perhaps the Mediterranean Sea. It is a robust crab of a reddish-brown colour, having an oval carapace with a characteristic "pie crust" edge and black tips to the claws. A mature adult may have a carapace width up to 25 centimetres and weigh up to 3 kilograms. C. pagurus is a nocturnal predator, targeting a range of molluscs and crustaceans. It is the subject of the largest crab fishery in Western Europe, centred on the coasts of the British Isles, with more than 60,000 tonnes caught annually.
Crab fisheries are fisheries which capture or farm crabs. True crabs make up 20% of all crustaceans caught and farmed worldwide, with about 1.4 million tonnes being consumed annually. The horse crab, Portunus trituberculatus, accounts for one quarter of that total. Other important species include flower crabs, snow crabs (Chionoecetes), blue crabs, edible or brown crabs, Dungeness crab, and mud crabs, each of which provides more than 20,000 tonnes annually.
Hematodinium is a genus of dinoflagellates. Species in this genus, such as Hematodinium perezi, the type species, are internal parasites of the hemolymph of crustaceans such as the Atlantic blue crab and Norway lobster. Species in the genus are economically damaging to commercial crab fisheries, including causing bitter crab disease in the large Tanner or snow crab fisheries of the Bering Sea.
Balanus nubilus, commonly called the giant acorn barnacle, is the world's largest barnacle, reaching a diameter of 15 cm (6 in) and a height of up to 30 cm (12 in), and containing the largest known muscle fibres.
Nephropsis atlantica, sometimes called the scarlet lobsterette or scarlet clawed lobster, is a species of lobster from the Atlantic Ocean.
Novocrania anomala is a species of brachiopod found offshore in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.
Balanus balanus is a species of acorn barnacle in the Balanidae family. It is native to the colder seas of the northern hemisphere.
Pododesmus patelliformis, the ribbed saddle-oyster, is a species of bivalve mollusc in the family Anomiidae. It is found in the north east Atlantic Ocean.
The curled octopus, also known as the horned octopus, lesser octopus or northern octopus, is a species of cephalopod found in the northeast Atlantic, ranging from Norway to the Mediterranean, including the British Isles. The total length of an adult is around 50 cm, but their arms are often tightly curled. It immobilises and eats large crustaceans by drilling a hole through their shell. It is mainly by-catch in commercial fisheries of the north eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, where the common octopus is the preferred species.
Around 65 species of crab occur in the waters of the British Isles. All are marine, with the exception of the introduced Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis, which occurs in fresh and brackish water. They range in size from the deep-water species Paromola cuvieri, which can reach a claw span of 1.2 metres, to the pea crab, which is only 4 mm (0.16 in) wide and lives inside mussel shells.
A shrimp is a crustacean with an elongated body and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – typically belonging to the Caridea or Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are also referred to as "shrimp".
Prawn is a common name for small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs, some of which are edible.
Crustaceans are invertebrate animals of the subphylum Crustacea, a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthropods including decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, opossum shrimps, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can be treated as a subphylum under the clade Mandibulata. It is now well accepted that the hexapods emerged deep in the Crustacean group, with the completed group referred to as Pancrustacea. The three classes Cephalocarida, Branchiopoda and Remipedia are more closely related to the hexapods than they are to any of the other crustaceans.
Pleurobrachia pileus is a species of comb jelly, commonly known as a sea gooseberry. It is found in open water in the northern Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, and was first described by the Danish zoologist Otto Friedrich Müller in 1776.
