Homolochunia valdiviae Doflein, 1904

Islam, Atikul, Banerjee, Abhishek, Wati, Sisca Meida, Banerjee, Sumita, Shrivastava, Deepti & Srivastava, Kumar Chandan, 2022, Crabs (Crustacea, Decapoda) from the Sea off East and Southeast Asia Collected by the RV Hakuhō Maru (KH- 72 - 1 Cruise) 2. Timor Sea, Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science. Series A, Zoology 48 (1), pp. 5-24 : 10

Homolochunia valdiviae Doflein, 1904

( Fig. 3A)

Material examined. RV Hakuhō Maru KH-72-1 cruise, sta. 27 (Timor Sea; 09°30.9′S, 127°56.6′E, 465–490 m depth), 3 m beam trawl; June 20, 1972; 1 8 (NSMT-Cr 29254: CB 12.3 mm, CL 18.5 mm including rostrum).

Remarks. The genus Homolochunia , revised by Guinot and Richer de Forges (1981, 1995), was at the time represented by three species; H. valdiviae Doflein, 1904 (type species; western Indian Ocean and Indonesia), H. kullar Griffin and Brown, 1976 ( New Caledonia, Loyalty I., and eastern Australia), and H. gadaletae Guinot and Richer de Forges, 1995 ( Japan and Taiwan). Subsequently, H. menezi was described from the Solomon Islands by Richer de Forges and Ng (2008). Recently, Padate et al. (2020) recorded a male from the Andaman Sea, 635 m depth, with detailed photographs of the characters. All of the four species of Homolochunia are quite characteristic in having a pair of long pseudorostral spines with one or more accessory spines, in addition to the peculiar chela of the last leg. Of these, H. gadaletae and H. menezi are similar to each other in the longitudinally quadrate shape of the carapace, the long pseudorostral spines directed forward and armed with an accessory spine at the subdistal part, and the peculiar shape of the chela of the last leg. In the present species, the carapace dorsal surface is uneven but not tuberculate at all, and the ambulatory legs are longer and slenderer than those of H. gadaletae .

Distribution. Western Indian Ocean (East Africa, Madagascar, Comoro Islands, Mozambique and Seychelles, 475–977 m depth), Eastern Indian Ocean (Andaman Sea, 635 m), and Indonesian waters (Makassar Strait, Mollucas, and Kai Islands , 390–694 m depth).