Austruca perplexa (H. Milne Edwards, 1852)

Lagare, Nickel Jean S., Mapi-Ot, Emmarie F., Molina, Ziljih S., Neri, Jemateo B., Nuñeza, Olga M. & Mendoza, Jose Christopher E., 2020, On a collection of freshwater and estuarine crabs (Crustacea: Brachyura) from Mindanao Island, the Philippines, Zootaxa 4868 (3), pp. 301-330 : 319

Austruca perplexa (H. Milne Edwards, 1852)

Fig. 5G

Uca (Celuca) lactaea perplexa, Crane 1975: 300 , 613, figs. 18D–F, 19C, 26D, 31E, 54K, KK, 69C.— Manuel et al. 1991: 84.

Material examined. 2 males, 15.7 by 9.5 mm, 16.3 by 10.1 mm ( ZRC), Bgy. Baluarte, Tagoloan town , Misamis Oriental prov., coll. N.J. Lagare, 23 Sep. 2016 .

Remarks. This species was described as Gelasimus perplexus by H. Milne Edwards (1852) from Java, Indonesia. In her revision of the fiddler crabs ( Uca ) of the world, Crane (1975) treated it as a subspecies of Uca (Celuca) lactaea , and recorded it from several localities in the Philippines, including Mindanao (see Table 1). Subsequent workers (e.g. Ng et al. 2008; Shih et al. 2009; Naderloo et al. 2010) treated it as a full species, and when Shih et al. (2016) did their phylogenetic study of Ocypodidae , they clarified the taxonomy of the previously convoluted subgeneric classification of the genus Uca , and recognized many of the subgenera as full genera. The so-called “ Uca lactaea ” species complex (which included “ Uca ” perplexa ) was shown to be part of a monophyletic clade and was included in the genus Austruca Bott, 1973 (whose composition was nearly identical to Crane’s (1975) concept of Indo-West Pacific Celuca) (Shih et al. 2016).

The present material was collected from the estuary of the Tagoloan River, and agrees well with the published keys, descriptions and illustrations of A. perplexa (cf. Crane 1975: 300, Naderloo et al. 2010: 24, fig. 16, 18c, f; Shih et al. 2016: 62, fig. 2C–E).

Figures

FIGURE 5. Colour photos of recently preserved crabs (dorsal habitus). A, Ptychognathus altimanus (Rathbun, 1914), male 21.1 by 19.9 mm (ZRC), Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental; B, Ptychognathus pusillus Heller, 1865, male, 13.1 by 10.7 mm (ZRC), Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental; C, Ptychognathus riedellii (A. Milne-Edwards, 1868), male, 28.9 by 25.0 mm (ZRC), Oroquieta, Misamis Occidental; D, Pyxidognathus granulosus A. Milne-Edwards, 1879, female, 15.4 by 17.3 mm (ZRC), Maigo, Lanao del Norte; E, Utica gracilipes Adams & White, 1848, male, 24.2 by 22.8 mm (ZRC), Iligan, Lanao del Norte; F, Varuna litterata (Fabricius, 1798), male, 42.1 by 37.5 mm (ZRC), Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte.G, Austruca perplexa (H. Milne Edwards, 1852), male, 13.9 by 10.6 mm (ZRC), Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental; H, Ocypode ceratophthalmus (Pallas, 1772), male, 30.8 by 27.8 mm (ZRC), Manukan, Zamboanga del Norte. Scale bars: 10 mm.