Common Spiny Lobster.

Palinurus elephas is a spiny lobster which is commonly caught in the Mediterranean Sea. Its common names include European spiny lobster, , crayfish or cray (in Ireland), common spiny lobster, Mediterranean lobster and red lobster.

P. elephas may reach up to 60 cm long (although rarely longer than 40 cm), and is found in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, from southern Norway to Morocco, and in the Mediterranean Sea, except its eastern extremes. It lives on rocky exposed coasts below the tidal zone. It is nocturnal and feeds on small worms, crabs or dead animals, hidings in rock crevices or caves in the day-time.

It is widely caught for food around the Mediterranean Sea, mostly with lobster pots, and is also caught less intensively off the Atlantic Coasts of Ireland, Portugal, France and England. There are also small fisheries for this species on the west coast of Scotland employing tangle nets or lobster pots.