Claws for concern? 'Crabzilla' is 12ft across, 40 years old... and he's the BIGGEST ever to go on display

Meet the salad that bites back.

Crabzilla, a gigantic Japanese spider crab who measures more than 12 feet across is getting ready to make his debut at the Scheveningen Sea Life centre in The Hague, Netherlands.

Crabzilla, thought to be the biggest of his kind, on his way to the Sea Life centre in Scheveningen, near The Hague

The scary-looking sea beast weights more than 30lbs, and at about 40 years old is one of the largest examples of his species yet captured.

The Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi) is undeniably a big sea crab, but it seems so enormous because of its astoundingly long legs.



Staff at the Sea Life centre show off Crabzilla's extraordinary 12 foot span

In legend, they are described as feeding on the bodies of drowned sailors. That could in part be true, but these marine scavengers will eat just about anything they can find.

Crabzilla' was caught in the Pacific Ocean in 2009. He's the biggest sea crab ever exhibited in Europe

This glass will hold him, won't it?: A young visitor at the Scheveningen Sea Life centre comes face to face with Crabzilla

Graham Burrows, curator of the National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham, said: 'The Japanese Spider Crab is the largest known member of the arthropod family, which includes all invertebrates with jointed limbs.



A woman takes pictures of Crabzilla while one of the rays that shares his tank looks nervously on

'Crabzilla's front limbs are his feeding arms, each over five feet long and ending in sizeable claws.

'They are a Japanese delicacy and are usually salted and steamed, but eating them in the spring is banned because that is when they lay their eggs.'

[Source]