A description of Ucides occidentalis Ortmann, 1897 (Crustacea : Decapoda : Ocypodidae) zoea I.

ABSTRACT

In order to facilitate the ecological study of the economically important red mangrove crab Ucides occidentalis, we describe the zoea I phase using samples hatched from gravid females taken from the Guayas River Estuary of Ecuador. No other phases of this species’ larval development have been described. The morphological differences between this developmental phase in U. occidentalis and its single congener U. cordatus that may be diagnostic include the number of segments in the pleon, the setation pattern of the basial endopodite of the maxillule, and, in maxillipeds I and II, the segmentation of the terminal plumose natatory setae.

KEYWORDS:

• Ucides occidentalis
• Ocypodidae
• Guayas estuary
• crab
• mangrove crab
• Ucidinae
• zoea

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Rafael Bermudez of the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) for use of equipment, the local fishermen who collected the gravid female crabs, Jacqueline Rodriguez of the Charles Darwin Foundation for assistance with dissection tools, the Charles Darwin Foundation and Patricia Jaramillo for microscope access, and the Water Quality lab at ESPOL. MAS was supported by ESPOL grant M2-DI-2015. Ovigerous female crabs were collected under Ministry of Environment Permit No. 020-2015-IC-FLO/FAU-DPG/MAE.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data deposition

Measurement data has been deposited in the Open Science framework (Center for Open Science); data can be accessed at: https://osf.io/zhjc3/?view_only=8fc6e3a6ee2b4d0ba4698456f450ae23.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Escuela Politécnica Superior del Litoral under an internal Research Group/Interdisciplinary Project Grant [M2-DI-2015].