Crystal Crab (Chaceon albus) are found in Western Australian waters of the Indian Ocean and the Timor Sea north of 34° 24’ S latitude to the Northern Territory border, on the seaward side of the 150 m isobath out to the extent of the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) (Smith et al. 2004).

Crystal crab has a geographical distribution restricted to WA waters. They occur on the continental shelf at depths of 300 – 1200 m. On the west coast of WA crystal crabs are caught primarily in depths of 500 – 800 m, although they are found over a broader range on the south coast of WA (i.e. 400 – 900 m depths). The habitat within these depth ranges are generally sand/mud or broken shell (Smith et al. 2004).

Most of the catch of crystal crab is from a small geographic area and management treats the stock as a single unit. Little is known about the stock structure of crystal crab on the west or south coast of WA but How et al. (2015) report that linkages between stocks on the west and south coast are unknown, therefore they may be separate stocks.

Commercial catch records indicate that males are larger than females and the commercial catch is dominated by males with the legally-retainable catch (> 103 mm CL [120 mm CW]) of males being 5.5 times that of legally-retainable females (Daume et al. 2016).