---
title: Painted Spiny Lobster (Panulirus versicolor)
scientific_name: Panulirus versicolor
common_name: Painted Spiny Lobster
taxon: Lobsters
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2026-08-07T11:51:31.080Z
updated: 2026-08-08T21:49:36.696Z
tags: Painted Spiny Lobster, Panulirus versicolor, Lobsters, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/lobsters/painted-spiny-lobster
---

# Painted Spiny Lobster (*Panulirus versicolor*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Lobsters (*Achelata*)
- **Size:** up to 40 cm
- **Depth:** 1-15 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Coral reef caves and overhangs
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- bold white transverse bands across a green-black carapace
- legs boldly striped black and white
- pink and white antennae, blue at the base
- length up to 40 cm

The most strikingly marked spiny lobster on the reef and the easiest to name: a green-black shell crossed by bold white bands, legs striped black and white like a barber's pole, and long antennae that are pink and white with blue bases. Adults reach about 40 cm (16 in). As in all spiny lobsters there are no claws.

It lives in coral caves and under overhangs from about 1 m to 15 m (3 to 50 ft), usually singly rather than in the packed groups other species form, facing outward with antennae sweeping the entrance. Feeding happens after dark and takes in snails, small crabs, urchins and whatever has died nearby. The antennae are not only sensors: dragged against a plate below the eye they make a loud rasping stridulation, and a lobster hauled out will saw away continuously - a sound designed for a predator's mouth, not for a diver's ears. Juveniles are frequently found much shallower than adults, in rubble and among coral fragments where a small animal can disappear entirely.

## Also known as

- **English:** marine crayfish, painted crawfish, painted crayfish
- **French:** la porcelaine, Langouste barriolée (La), langouste barriolée
- **German:** Blaue Schmucklanguste, Bunte Languste, Schmucklanguste
- **Spanish:** langosta colorete
- **Portuguese:** lagosta pintada
- **Japanese:** goshiki ebi, goshiki-ise-ebi, ゴシキエビ
- **Chinese:** huk paak mun lung ha, 雜色龍蝦
- **Russian:** Разноцветный лангуст
- **FIJ:** uraudina
- **ID:** udang barong
- **KO:** 흰줄닭새우
- **SND:** kikat
- **TGL:** banagan, banang
- **TH:** kun mangkon
- **VI:** tôm hum

## Scientific synonyms

- *Palinurus taeniatus* Lamarck, 1818
- *Palinurus versicolor* Latreille, 1804
- *Panulirus demani* Borradaile, 1900
- *Puer spiniger* Ortmann, 1894

## Range

Australia, East Africa, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Japan, Kenya, Madagascar, Melanesia, Micronesia, Mozambique, Mozambique Channel, New Caledonian Exclusive Economic Zone, Palawan/North Borneo, Polynesia, Seychelles, South Africa, South Pacific Ocean, Tanzania

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/crustaceans/lobsters/painted-spiny-lobster)*
*Updated: August 8, 2026*