Cape lobsters are elusive and rare, with only fourteen specimens having been collected between 1792 (the date of its first description) and 1992. These include five males in the collections of the South African Museum (Cape Town), two in the Natural History Museum (London), one in each of the East London Museum, the (Leiden) and the Albany Museum (Grahamstown), and one male and one female in the (Paris). In 1992, a Cape lobster was discovered at Dassen Island, and the publicity the find generated resulted in more than 20 additional specimens being reported.