Heteroporcellana corbicola ( Haig, 1960 )

Ferreira, Luciane Augusto De Azevedo & Anker, Arthur, 2021, An annotated and illustrated checklist of the porcelain crabs of Panama (Decapoda: Anomura), Zootaxa 5045 (1), pp. 1-154 : 24

Heteroporcellana corbicola ( Haig, 1960)

Porcellana corbicola Haig 1960: 107 , 205, pl. 15; Gore & Abele 1976: 26.

Heteroporcellana corbicola . — Haig 1978: 713.

Material examined. None.

Previous records from Panama. Gore & Abele (1976).

Distribution. East Pacific: Mexico and Panama (Taboga Is.) ( Haig 1960; Gore & Abele 1976).

Ecology. Lower intertidal and subtidal, known depth range: 0–50 m; associated with the caryophillid coral Phyllangia dispersa Verrill , apparently imitating the colour and shape of this coral’s polyps (see below). According to notes supplied by Dr. Peter Glynn and published in Gore & Abele (1976), H. corbicola has “the same ground color as the polyps and possesses green splotches on the anterior portion of the carapace which correspond to the green beads seen on the tentacles of the coral”.

Remarks. The genus Heteroporcellana was created by Haig (1978) to accommodate H. corbicola , its only representative until today. This seemingly rare species is known from Panama solely on the basis of two specimens (male and ovigerous female) from Taboguilla Island, in the Taboga Islands group ( Gore & Abele 1976, as Porcellana corbicola ). To our best knowledge, there are no colour photographs of H. corbicola .

Genus Megalobrachium Stimpson, 1858