[7] Panulirus ornatus has a wide geographical range in the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea and KwaZulu-Natal in the west to Japan and Fiji in the east.

[8] The species is responsible for supporting a number of fisheries in Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, the Torres Strait in Australia, and other Indo-Pacific regions.

These lobsters depend on carotenoids for energy as well as other functional benefits, including reproductive success, post-larval development, antioxidants, and even stress resistance.

Larval release occurs when the Panulirus ornatus population ends migration and arrives on the reefs of the eastern seaboard of the Gulf of Papua.

Reproductive migration across the Gulf of Papua occurs in order to disperse larvae in oceanic currents that favor their distribution near the Torres Strait.

Dispersed throughout the eastern coast of Australia, Panulirus ornatus larvae must migrate as juveniles to the adult habitat in the northern Torres Strait.

[14] Therefore, many Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines, have tested feeding pellets in order to ensure marketable growth.

This is a mutually beneficial practice, as humans are able to export (and eat) large sums of P. ornatus, and meanwhile this species is subjected to much lower mortality rates in the process.

[14] Many government officials do not recognize the mutual benefits of this practice and have implemented regulations in an attempt to increase already-stable populations of adult lobsters.