European spiny lobster (Palinurus elephas) — spearfishing in Morocco

Legal size: 17 cm; from the eye to the base of the tail
Maximum size: Up to 50 cm and 8 kg, commonly 20 to 35 cm
Maximum age: 15 years or more
Depth: 5 to 70 m, occasionally 160

Mediterranean Atlantic Difficulty · Technical IUCN · Vulnerable

The legal size is set by order no. 1154-88 as amended — below it, fishing, transporting, buying or selling the species is prohibited. See the full table.

What the legal size does not tell you

Legal size: 17 cm (from the eye to the base of the tail)
First maturity: Females around 23 to 25 cm total length, at four to five years, in the Atlantic and Mediterranean studies

The legal size comes from the 1988 order, written for commercial fishing. The maturity sizes come from scientific studies, each carried out in one particular area: they give an order of magnitude, not a rule.

01 Telling it apart

A reddish-brown lobster with no claws, a spiny carapace, two very long, thick antennae and a pair of pale spots on each tail segment. The legs are banded. What you see in the rock is the antennae, sweeping slowly from a crack or under an overhang, often several pairs from the same hole.

Up close the carapace is covered in forward-pointing spines and the antennae bases carry stout hooked spines. The whole animal is armoured and handles like it.

The pink spiny lobster of deeper water is paler and lives well below diving depth.

02 Habitat

Cracks, overhangs and deep holes in rock, often in a group in the same cavity, from around 10 m down. It prefers exposed rock with strong structure and current.

It hides by day, deep in the crack, and comes out at night to feed on molluscs, urchins and carrion over the surrounding bottom.

Deep rocky coasts on both seaboards hold it. It is scarce on the shallow rock a beginner swims over.

03 Where to find it in Morocco

Deep rocky coasts on both seaboards. The Atlantic north and the Mediterranean walls hold the better populations.

There is no Moroccan population study. The maturity and egg-carrying figures here are European and are the working assumption.

04 Spawning

Females carry the eggs under the tail for several months, usually from autumn to spring: mated in late summer, the eggs are released as larvae the following spring. The larvae drift for months.

A berried female is the whole next generation walking about. She is protected at every size and in every season.

05 Behaviour

It comes out at night and sits at the back of the crack by day, antennae forward. It backs deeper into the rock when approached, with a strength that will strip its own legs off before it comes out.

Groups share a hole. Where one pair of antennae shows, there are usually more behind.

How you approach it

Look for antennae in the cracks and under overhangs. The body is never visible; the antennae are.
By hand, in thick gloves. The carapace and antennae are covered in spines that cut through thin neoprene.
Take it at the base of the antennae or across the carapace with a firm grip and pull straight out. Never force a wedged animal: you will leave with the legs and not the lobster.
Turn it over before you keep it. A berried female goes straight back, gently, into the same crack.
Measure eye to tail base. The tail tip is not part of the legal length.

What people get wrong

01 That the legal size is measured to the tip of the tail. It is measured from the eye to the base of the tail; a 17 cm animal measured that way is far larger overall.
02 That a lobster can be taken with a spear. It is taken by hand only; a speared lobster is a wasted animal and an offence.
03 That antennae in a crack mean one lobster. They live in groups; the one you see is rarely alone.

Do not confuse it with

The species this one is taken for, and what tells them apart.

Pink spiny lobster, Palinurus mauritanicus — paler pink with different tail markings, in deep water well below diving depth; a different legal size.
European lobster, Homarus gammarus — dark blue-black with two large claws; the same legal size, measured the same way.
Slipper lobster, Scyllarides latus — flat and brown with short paddle-shaped antennae; protected in much of the Mediterranean.