Achelous ordwayi (Stimpson, 1860)

Portunus ordwayi Stimpson, 1860: 224 .

Material examined. None.

Distribution. Western Atlantic—USA (Massachusetts to Florida), Gulf of Mexico, Antilles, Colombia, Venezuela to Brazil (Fernando de Noronha, Amapá, Pará, Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul) (Powers 1977; Lemaitre 1981; Williams 1984; Barreto et al. 1993; Melo 1996; Bertini et al. 2004; Hernández-Ávila et al. 2007; Almeida & Coelho 2008; Felder et al. 2009).

Remarks. Previous records in São Paulo include Ubatuba (Mantelatto & Fransozo 2000; Bertini et al. 2004, 2010) and Caraguatatuba (Braga et al. 2005). Few specimens of small sizes (6–13mm) were found by Mantelatto & Fransozo (2000) and Bertini et al. (2004) and may be considered accidental occurrences. This fact might indicate that this species is not abundant in comparison to other brachyurans (Mantelatto & Fransozo 2000). The specimens previously sampled are juvenile and the recognition of the diagnostic characters is difficult and may lead to misidentifications. In addition, no additional individual collected in the present study raised doubts regarding the previous records, since the molecular evaluation carried out with specimens from USA revealed the clear phylogenetic position of this species within the genus Achelous (Mantelatto et al. 2007, 2009, 2018b).