Dromia gibbosa H. Milne Edwards, 1837

Cleva, Régis, Guinot, Danièle & Albenga, Laurent, 2007, Annotated catalogue of brachyuran type specimens (Crustacea, Decapoda, Brachyura) deposited in the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris. Part I. Podotremata, Zoosystema 29 (2), pp. 229-279 : 241

Dromia gibbosa H. Milne Edwards, 1837

Dromia gibbosa H. Milne Edwards, 1837: 175 .

CURRENT STATUS. —? Lauridromia indica (Gray, 1831) .

? SYNTYPE. — MNHN-B10, without indication of origin, ♀ approximately 20 mm width, previously dry but presently rehydrated, much damaged. — Original label: “ Dromia gibbosa Latr. ?, ‘jeune âge’”.

REMARKS

In a footnote H. Milne Edwards (1837: 175) referred the synonymy of Dromia gibbosa with Dromia aegagrophila (Fabricius, 1787) to Latreille but did not provide a date for the reference. According to McLay (1993: 145) the type material of D. gibbosa was believed to be no longer extant. But McLay (2001b:823, 826) mentioned that the type specimen “has recently been re-discovered in the dry collection of MNHN (D. Guinot pers. comm.)”. The female MNHN-B10 cannot be the much larger specimen quoted by H. Milne Edwards (1837: 176) as measuring “2 pouces” (about 54 mm), but it might be a syntype. McLay (1993: 145) considered the poorly described D. gibbosa as a probable synonym of Lauridromia indica (Gray, 1831) and again ( McLay 2001b) stated that H. Milne Edwards’ description contained “enough details [...] to confidently say that D. gibbosa is almost certainly the same as D. indica Gray, 1831 ”, i.e. Lauridromia indica (Gray, 1831) .