Ilyoplax | |
---|---|
Ilyoplax | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Arthropoda |
Class: | Malacostraca |
Order: | Decapoda |
Suborder: | Pleocyemata |
Infraorder: | Brachyura |
Family: | Dotillidae |
Genus: | Ilyoplax Stimpson, 1858 |
The fiddler crab or calling crab may be any of more than one hundred species of semiterrestrial marine crabs in the family Ocypodidae, well known for their sexually dimorphic claws; the males' major claw is much larger than the minor claw, while the females' claws are both the same size. A smaller number of ghost crab and mangrove crab species are also found in the family Ocypodidae. This entire group is composed of small crabs, the largest being slightly over two inches (5 cm) across. Fiddler crabs are found along sea beaches and brackish intertidal mud flats, lagoons, swamps, and various other types of brackish or salt-water wetlands.
Mary Jane Rathbun was an American zoologist who specialized in crustaceans. She worked at the Smithsonian Institution from 1884 until her death. She described more than a thousand new species and subspecies and many higher taxa.
Xanthidae is a family of crabs known as gorilla crabs, mud crabs, pebble crabs or rubble crabs. Xanthid crabs are often brightly coloured and are highly poisonous, containing toxins which are not destroyed by cooking and for which no antidote is known. The toxins are similar to the tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin produced by puffer fish, and may be produced by bacteria in the genus Vibrio living in symbiosis with the crabs, mostly V. alginolyticus and V. parahaemolyticus.
Pinnotheres is a genus of crabs, including the pea crab. Many species formerly in Pinnotheres have been placed in new genera, such as Zaops ostreus, the oyster crab and Nepinnotheres novaezelandiae, the New Zealand pea crab. The species currently recognised in the genus Pinnotheres are:
Sand bubbler crabs are crabs of the genera Scopimera and Dotilla in the family Dotillidae. They are small crabs that live on sandy beaches in the tropical Indo-Pacific. They feed by filtering sand through their mouthparts, leaving behind balls of sand that are disintegrated by the incoming high tide.
Macrophthalmus is a genus of crabs which are widespread across the Indo-Pacific. It contains the following species :
Maja is a genus of majid crabs erected by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1801. It includes the following extant species:
Perisesarma is a genus of mangrove crabs in the family Sesarmidae predominantly found in the Indo-Pacific. Some 23 species are described as of late 2006, with two from West Africa: P. kammermani(De Man, 1883) and P. albertiRathbun, 1921. They are typically small, semiterrestrial crabs found on the forest floor at low tide. They eat nearly anything they can, and try to eat anything that does not threaten them — including pencils and other objects dropped on the forest floor. The last species of the genus described is P. samawatiGillikin and Schubart (2004). It can be found in East Africa along with P. guttatum, but its sister species is P. eumolpe from Malaysian mangroves.
The Sesarmidae are a family of crabs, previously included in the Grapsidae by many authors. Several species, namely in Geosesarma, Metopaulias, and Sesarma, are true terrestrial crabs. They do not need to return to the sea even for breeding.
Geosesarma is genus of small freshwater or terrestrial crabs, typically less than 10 mm (0.4 in) across the carapace. They live and reproduce on land with the larval stages inside the egg. They are found from India, through Southeast Asia, to the Solomon Islands and Hawaii.
The Varunidae are a family of thoracotrematan crabs. The delimitation of this family, part of the taxonomically confusing Grapsoidea, is undergoing revision. For a long time, they were placed at the rank of subfamily in the Grapsidae, but they appear to be closest to Macropthalmus and the Mictyridae, which are usually placed in the Ocypodoidea. It may thus be better to merge the latter superfamily with the Grapsoidea, retaining the latter name as it is older.
The Aethridae are a family of crabs in their own superfamily, Aethroidea. It contains these genera :
Pilumnoidea is a superfamily of crabs, whose members were previously included in the Xanthoidea. The three families are unified by the free articulation of all the segments of the male crab's abdomen and by the form of the gonopods. The earliest fossils assigned to this group are of Eocene age.
Pugettia is a genus of kelp crabs in the family Epialtidae. It comprises the following species:
Osachila is a genus of crabs in the family Aethridae, containing three fossil species, and the following extant species:
Neoliomera is a genus of crabs in the family Xanthidae, containing the following species:
Lachnopodus is a genus of crabs in the family Xanthidae, containing the following species:
Pilumnus is a genus of crabs, containing the following species:
Cyclograpsus is a genus of crabs, containing the following species:
Rochinia is a genus of crab in the family Epialtidae, containing the following species: