A snow crab has sold for a record USD 66,000 in Japan.

The luxury seafood was sold at the Hamasaka fishing port, in the town of Shinonsen, in Toyama Prefecture on the first auction day of this year’s crab fishing season, on 6th November.

The expensive crustacean sold for JPY 10 million (GBP 54,107; USD 66,319) when Ryosuke Uemura, 47, the owner of the Ryouriya Uemura restaurant, which is in Kobe’s Chuo Ward, bid higher than anyone else.

He said: “I wanted to get one on day one, no matter what. The crabs at the Hamasaka fishing port are high quality, and I want this to become better known. I’d like to eat the snow crab with my restaurant’s patrons.”

The 1.2-kilogramme (2.64-lb) specimen was reportedly a “matsuba-gani”, which are male snow crabs that are fished off the coast of the Sanin region on the south-western coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island.

The auction price is a record in the prefecture, with the previous record of JPY 3.15 million (GBP 17,041; USD 20,893) from 2022 being beaten by a considerable margin.

Matsuba-gani that, among other things, weigh 1.2 kilogrammes or more, are especially sought after, according to local media.