Establishment of a new subfamily for Shenius anomalus (Shen, 1935) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura: Dotillidae)

Abstract

Shenius anomalus (Shen, 1935) has previously been assigned to the Macrophthalmidae Dana, 1851, and the Camptandriidae Stimpson, 1858. A close examination of adult and first stage zoeal morphology confirms some previous suggestions that S. anomalus is actually an anomalous member of the Dotillidae Stimpson, 1858. However, because a number of distinctive features distinguish it from all other dotillid genera a new subfamily Sheniinae is established.

Keywords:

• Crustacea
• Brachyura
• Dotillidae
• Sheniinae
• new subfamily
• systematics

Acknowledgements

The first author thanks Sundowo Harminto for starting this exercise over 20 years ago, and for obtaining the important first zoeae of Shenius anomalus. He is also grateful to Cheryl Tan for helping to develop the ideas further during her revision of the Camptandriidae. Thanks are also due to the late Dai Aiyun for her kind help in searching for Shen's material in the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and to Ng Ngan Kee and Tohru Naruse for examining and photographing the types. Jose A. Cuesta acknowledges an EU grant from BIORESOURCES Large Scale Facility that allowed him to visit the Natural History Museum, London and collaborate with Paul Clark on the larval morphology of the Ocypodoidea. The authors thank Harry Taylor, NHM Photo Unit, for taking the photographs in Figure 2.