A new species of portunid crab of the genus Charybdis (De Haan, 1833) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura) from Goa, India

Abstract

A new species of portunid crab, Charybdis (Charybdis) goaensis sp. nov. is described from Goa, west coast of India. It differs from its closest congener, Charybdis (Charybdis) philippinensis in possessing bluntly triangular median frontal teeth, wide U-shaped notches separating the sub-median and lateral frontal teeth, wide notches separating antero-lateral teeth, and granular tuberosity on cardiac region of carapace. A taxonomic key to 43 species of the sub-genus Charybdis including the newly described species is also provided.

Keywords:

• Charybdis (Charybdis) goaensis
• Crustacea
• Decapoda
• India
• new species
• Portunidae

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Ballast Water Management Programme, India executed by National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa for Directorate General of Shipping, Ministry of Shipping, Government of India. We would also take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude to Dr B.F. Chhapgar, an eminent carcinologist from the Indian Ocean region for his valuable guidance in confirming the identity of the newly described species. We gratefully acknowledge Dr Sara C. Watson and Dr Mark Siddall, American Museum of Natural History, for their timely help in providing Charybdis philippinensis specimens on loan. We are also indebted to Mr V. Khedekar, Geological Oceanography Division, NIO for the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) photography of the crab specimens. The authors are extremely grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their critical suggestion which enabled improvement of the manuscript. The help extended by Dr M.P. Tapaswi in obtaining the references from different places without which this study would have been incomplete is gratefully acknowledged. This is a joint contribution of Goa University and National Institute of Oceanography (NIO contribution no. 4662).

Notes

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark