Portunus sanguinolentus (Herbst, 1783)

Manikandan, K, Megalaa, N, Valliappan, Subramanian, Nandini, K, Rani, Lourdu V, Dakshinamurthi, Senthil & Nagappan, Nagappan, 2022, Crabs (Crustacea, Decapoda) from the Seas of East and Southeast Asia Collected by the RV Hakuhō Maru (KH- 72 - 1 Cruise) 3. Sahul Shelf, Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science. Series A, Zoology 48 (2), pp. 35-83 : 64

Portunus sanguinolentus (Herbst, 1783)

Material examined. RV Hakuhō Maru KH-72-1 cruise, sta. 30, 1 $( CB 101.1 mm including lateral spines×CL 49.3 mm), NSMTCr 30736.

Remarks. This species is common as one of the important edible crabs in the West Pacific ( Ng, 1998), having three large spots on the carapace, with one on the intestinal region and one on each metabranchial region. A full synonymy was given by Apel and Spiridonov (1998). These peculiar spots were clearly represented by Herbst (1783: pl. 8 fig. 56 as Cancer sanguinolentus ) and similar colored spots are also present in P. hawaiiensis Stephenson, 1968 , which was originally described as a subspecies of P. sanguinolentus based on the Hawaiian and Fijian specimens, but raised to a full species status by Castro (2011) on the different overall color pattern and minor but constant morphological differences.

Distribution. Widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific from Japan southwards to Australia and westwards to the Red Sea and South Africa, 3–55 m depth. Barnard (1950) mentioned the occurrence of this species on Sargassum algae in the south of Madagascar, and it is likewise noted here that juveniles are commonly found on the floating seaweeds in Japanese waters. Chen (1998) recorded this species from the Nansha Islands at the depth of 382 m.