Cancer tearlachi Curtiss, 1938

Ng, Peter K. L., Eldredge, Lucius G. & Evenhuis, Neal L., 2011, The names of decapod and stomatopod Crustacea from Tahiti, French Polynesia, established by Anthony Curtiss in 1938 and 1944, Zootaxa 3099, pp. 43-56 : 53

Cancer tearlachi Curtiss, 1938 [papaá taéro]

Cancer sebana Shaw & Nodder, 1803: 591 .

Cancer tearlachi Curtiss, 1938: 177 .

This species was described as a “poison crab” ( Curtiss 1938: 176) and “is never eaten” ( Curtiss 1938: 177). The description of the carapace and especially the “red eyes” ( Curtiss 1938: 177) easily identifies it with a well known intertidal species known to be often poisonous, Eriphia sebana ( Shaw & Nodder, 1803) (Eriphiidae) ( Ng 1998). Holthuis (1968: 218) was the first to synonymize Curtiss’s species and reported that C. tearlachi “cannot be anything but Eriphia sebana ”.A second species of Eriphia is present in French Polynesia, E. scabricula Dana, 1852 (see Poupin & Juncker 2010) but has the carapace more unevenly patterned and the eyes in life are never red. The taxonomy of Eriphia and the identity of E. sebana (often identified as E. laevimana Guérin, 1829 ) were revised by Koh & Ng (2008).