Clibanarius symmetricus ( Randall, 1840 )

Lemaitre, Rafael & Tavares, Marcos, 2015, New taxonomic and distributional information on hermit crabs (Crustacea: Anomura: Paguroidea) from the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and Atlantic coast of South America, Zootaxa 3994 (4), pp. 451-506 : 468

Clibanarius symmetricus ( Randall, 1840)

Pagurus symmetricus Randall, 1840: 133 [type locality: Suriname, restricted by lectotype selection by Negri et al., 2014]. Clibanarius vittatus .— Moreira, 1901: 28.— Holthuis, 1959: 141, figs 26a, b, 27.—Forest & de Saint Laurent, 1968: 104.— Sánchez & Campos, 1978: 32, fig. 9.—Coelho & Ramos- Porto, 1986: 52.— Rieger, 1998: 422.— Melo, 1999: 56, fig. 14.— Nucci & Melo, 2015: 334, figs 2D, 6B. (See Remarks).

Clibanarius symmetricus .— Negri et al. 2014: 851, figs 1A–C, 2B, C, 3–5 [and synonymy therein].

Type material. Lectotype (dry) 11.2 mm selected by Negri et al. (2014), sex undetermined due to damaged ventral thorax and missing pleon, Suriname, [no other data], coll. Dr. Herring ( ANSP 3229); paralectotype, 1 dry specimen, sex undetermined, 9.5 mm, "East Indies", [no other data], coll. J. Longstreth ( ANSP 3229).

Diagnosis. See Negri et al. (2014)

Distribution. Western Atlantic: from Caribbean Sea to Santa Catarina, Brazil. Depth: intertidal or shallow waters less then 1 m, rarely to 22 m ( Negri et al. 2014).

Remarks. Using an analysis of the barcode region of the COI gene, Negri et al. (2014) recently resurrected the name Clibanarius symmetricus for this species which had been confounded for over 170 years under the name Clibanarius vittatus ( Bosc, 1802) . The latter name had been applied to a common littoral species presumed to range broadly in the western Atlantic from the southeastern United States and Gulf of Mexico to Brazil. However, Negri et al. (2014) demonstrated based on molecular and morphological (color) data that C. vittatus sensu lato actually contained two species, and that the name C. vittatus applies only to a species distributed in the southeastern coast of the United States and Gulf of Mexico, whereas the name C. symmetricus should be applied to this species that occurs in the western and southern Caribbean to Brazil. Thus, any previous records reported as “ Clibanarius vittatus ” from the western Caribbean to Brazil, actually refer to C. symmetricus . Nucci & Melo’s (2015) report of C. vittatus from Brazil was in press when the study by Negri et al. (2014) was published, and the former authors could not replace in time the name C. vittatus by C. symmetricus .

As discussed in detail by Negri et al. (2014), the difference in coloration of the carpi of the ambulatory legs is the only reliable morphological character to separate Clibanarius symmetricus from C. vittatus sensu stricto. The carpi in C. symmetricus each have three straight, whitish longitudinal stripes, two on the lateral face and one on the dorsal or dorsolateral margin, whereas the carpi in C. vittatus sensu stricto each have four stripes on the lateral face: one straight lateroventral, two submedian and approximate (with the lower stripe slightly curving proximally and together with the upper stripe forming the top of a blunt, posteriorly schewed triangle), and one straight dorsolateral.