Family: Penaeidae

Size: The Western king prawn reaches 200 mm (7.9 inches) of which the tails constitute up to 140mm (5.5 inches)

Distribution:
A very widely distributed shrimp in the Indo-West Pacific region, the western king prawn is found from Southeast Africa north to the Red sea, in the Arabian Gulf, around India, Southeast Asia and throughout the Malay archipelago to Japan and Korea and South to Australia where it is found from South Australia all around the coast to northern New South Wales. Living on hard bottoms of sand, sandy mud or gravel, the species likes shallower marine water down to about 90 meters (about 300 feet).

Comments:
This is a light-colored shrimp, popular in Japan as well as in Australia, which produces a large proportion of the total landings. This species is the most important one in the South Australian prawn fishery and is also very important in parts of Western Australia. Somalia, the Gulf of Aden, Taiwan, Thailand and the Arabian Gulf are other areas where catches are significant.
This shrimp is very similar to P. japonicus, the Kuruma prawn, and to P. canaliculatus, the witch prawn.