Chaceon maritae
The deep-sea red crab Chacheon maritae is a brachyuran crab of the family Geryonidae. Geryonids crabs are true deep-sea crabs and are found in all oceans except in the eastern Pacific above Chile.
Along the Namibian coast C. maritae is distributed from about 27o00S northwards to the Cunene border with Angola.
The deep-sea red crab C. maritae off both Angola and Namibia is commercially exploited by means of Japanese beehive-style traps on long-lines. The main fishing area is concentrated along the common border, indicating some continuity in the distribution of this resource across the border.
Sexual zonation for C. maritae where females occur shallower. In general the size of male crabs decreases with depth too. Females usually dominate the commercial catches off Angola while males mostly dominate catches off Namibia.
Tagging studies contacted on the Namibian portion of the crab population in the 1980's and early 1990's, indicated substantial migrations of adult female crabs into Angola.
Research on the deep-see red crab were initiated in 1994 and have been conducted by means of traps set on long-lines during scientific surveys. The main purpose of trapping surveys is to monitor changes in the distribution patterns and dynamics of the crab population over its entire area of distribution than that covered by both the commercial fleet and the Observer Sampling Programmes. Trapping surveys served two purposes namely sampling of commercial catches and conducting scientific trapping for collecting carapace width size frequency and biological data at sea.
