Cancer afata Curtiss, 1938

Ng, Peter K. L., Eldredge, Lucius G. & Evenhuis, Neal L., 2011, The names of decapod and stomatopod Crustacea from Tahiti, French Polynesia, established by Anthony Curtiss in 1938 and 1944, Zootaxa 3099, pp. 43-56 : 48

Cancer afata Curtiss, 1938 [papaá]

Cancer hepaticus Linnaeus, 1758: 630 .

Cancer afata Curtiss, 1938: 171 .

The description of the habitat and carapace (notably the “saw-toothed edge in front and in back”, p. 170) agrees very well with the common reef box crab Calappa hepatica ( Linnaeus, 1758) (Calappidae) . The colour described, “brown or dull black in front, olive-colored (above) towards the rear, with a network of brown or dull black lines” ( Curtiss 1938: 170), agrees with what is known for C. hepatica . This is an Indo-West Pacific species common in the sandy intertidal areas of reefs. Galil (1997) was the first to list Curtiss’s name (as “ Cancer alata ”) as a junior synonym of Calappa hepatica . Two other shallow water species are present, C. calappa ( Linnaeus, 1758) and C. gallus (Herbst, 1803) ( Poupin & Juncker 2010) but their lateral margins of the carapace of are different, being smooth and entire for C. calappa and crenulated but not saw-like in C. gallus .