[3][4] The eyes are unpigmented, in contrast to shallow-water species, and the carapace, abdomen and chelae are covered in setae (bristles).

[4] Nephropsis atlantica is found on muddy substrates in deep waters of the eastern Atlantic Ocean, from the Faroe Islands to Namibia.

[3] It is one of only three clawed lobsters in the north-east Atlantic Ocean (the others being Homarus gammarus and Nephrops norvegicus), and the only one which is not the subject of commercial fishery.

[2] Nephropsis atlantica was first described by the Reverend Canon Alfred Merle Norman in a report sent to Charles Wyville Thomson in 1880, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1882.

Norman's report opens "I send a list; it is a very interesting one", and goes on to detail species known from previous expeditions to the North Atlantic and three new species – Ampelisca compacta (Amphipoda: Ampeliscidae), Halirages elegans (Amphipoda: Calliopiidae) and Nephropsis atlantica.