Tubuca urvillei (H. Milne Edwards, 1852)

Shih, Hsi-Te, Chan, Benny K. K. & Ng, Peter K. L., 2018, Tubucaalcocki, a new pseudocryptic species of fiddler crab from the Indian Ocean, sister to the southeastern African T. urvillei (H. Milne Edwards, 1852) (Crustacea, Decapoda, Brachyura, Ocypodidae), ZooKeys 747, pp. 41-62 : 42-45

Tubuca urvillei (H. Milne Edwards, 1852) Figures 1, 2, 4B, 5 E–H, 7B, D, F, H

Gelasimus arcuatus - Krauss 1843: 39 [Natal Bay, South Africa] (not Ocypode (Gelasimus) arcuata De Haan, 1835).

Gelasimus urvillei H. Milne Edwards, 1852: 148, pl. 3(10) [type locality: “Vanikoro”]; Kingsley 1880: 145 [list]; De Man 1891: 21, 34 [Nossy Faly, Madagascar]; Ortmann 1894: 59 [Dar es Salaam, Tanzania].

Gelasimus dussumieri - A. Milne-Edwards 1868: 71 [list; Zanzibar]; Hilgendorf 1869: 84, pl. 4(1) [Zanzibar]; Hoffmann 1874: 17-18, pl. 3(19-22) [part; Nossy Faly, Madagascar]; De Man 1880: 68 [part; Madagascar]; Kingsley 1880: 145 [list; part]; Lenz and Richters 1881: 423 [Madagascar]; Pfeffer 1889: 30 [Zanzibar]; De Man 1891: 20, 26 [part; Nossy Faly, Madagascar]; Lenz 1910: 559 [Zanzibar; Pemba] (not Gelasimus dussumieri H. Milne Edwards, 1852).

Uca arcuata - Stebbing 1905: 40 [South Africa]; Stebbing 1910: 327 [list] (not Ocypode (Gelasimus) arcuata De Haan, 1835).

Uca arcuatus - Stebbing 1917: 15 [Natal, South Africa] (not Ocypode (Gelasimus) arcuata De Haan, 1835).

Uca dussumieri - Maccagno 1928: 17-19 [part; Giumbo, Somalia] (not Gelasimus dussumieri H. Milne Edwards, 1852).

Uca urvillei - Barnard 1950: 93-94, figs 18 d–f, 19 a–b; Fourmanoir 1954: 3 [Madagascar]; Macnae 1963: 23 [Inhaca I., Mozambique to Cape Province, South Africa]; Richmond 1997: 226, 2 unnumbered figs on p. 227 [eastern Africa]; Crosnier 1965: 110-112, figs 186, 191-193, 195-196; Kensley 1981: 49 [list]; Rosenberg 2001: 860, 868 [South Africa]; Serbino 2008: 62-72, fig. 1 [Mozambique].

Tubuca urvillei - Bott 1973: fig. 11; Shih et al. 2016: 159 [list; part].

Uca (Uca) urvillei - Hartnoll 1975: 308, 310, 322, 324, fig. 8 [Tanzania].

Uca (Uca) dussumieri - Hartnoll 1975: 308, 310 [list; Tanzania] (not Gelasimus dussumieri H. Milne Edwards, 1852).

Uca (Deltuca) [coarctata] urvillei - Crane 1975: 58-61, figs 7, 8D, 9D, 27 G–H, 38 U–X, 62E, 75, pl. 9 A–B, E–H [part, southeastern Africa].

Uca (Deltuca) urvillei - Vannini and Valmori 1981: 212-213, figs 5F1, F2, 6F [Giumbo, Somalia].

Uca (Tubuca) urvillei - Bouchard et al. 2013: 46, fig. 40 (Mayotte); Peer et al. 2014: 60, fig. 15; 2015: 190, 198, fig. 4c, d (upper figure) [South Africa].

Material examined.

Lectotype ♂ (CW 18.5 mm, CL 11.0 mm, PL 17.0 mm) (MNHN B.12073), “Vanikoro”, coll. J. R. C. Quoy and J. P. Gaimard (Fig. 1 A–E). Paralectotypes: 2 ♀♀ (MNHN B. 3208), same data as lectotype (Fig. 1 F–G).

Other material.

1 ♂ (CW 28.5 mm), 1 ♀ (CW 22.9 mm) (SMF 19985), Shimo la Tewa, ca. 20 km N Mombasa, ca. 2 km von Küste entfernt, Schlickmangrove, Kenya, coll. H. Langer, 11 Aug. 1990; 1 ♂ (CW 29.7 mm) (ZRC 1999.1107), Poroani, mangrove to the south, Mayotte, 23 July 1998; 2 ♂♂ (CW 27.9-34.9 mm), NCHUZOOL 14895, Mida Creek, Malindi, Kenya.

Diagnosis.

Male. Carapace (Figs 1A, 2A, 4B, 7B, D, F) with anterolateral angle (= external orbital angle) broadly triangular, directed laterally; anterolateral margin short to moderately long; dorsolateral margin long, definite, strongly converging; 1 posterolateral stria. Floor of orbit with row of fewer than 17 tubercles, sometime with blunt ridge (Figs 1B, 2C, D). Major cheliped (Figs 1C, 2B) with dactylus usually longer than palm, outer surface of dactylus and pollex each with 1 long groove proximally extending beyond midlength. Fingers of minor cheliped without conspicuous tooth on either finger. G1 (Fig. 5 E–H) with distal tube relatively stout, distinctly curved, gently tapering towards tip, distal part distinctly narrower than proximal part; thumb of moderate length, extending beyond base of distal tube. Female. Carapace with anterolateral an gle acutely triangular; anterolateral margin short or absent, joining dorsolateral margin as almost straight line (Fig. 7H). Floor of orbit with row of 14-16 tubercles (Fig. 2F). Fingers of cheliped (Fig. 2F) each with conspicuous tooth on occlusal margin. (See also Remarks under T. alcocki sp. n. for comparisons of morphology and colouration.)

Distribution.

Southeastern Africa from Giumbo (= Jumboo), southern Somalia, to Cape Province, South Africa (mouth of Umtata R.); Madagascar ( Crane 1975).

Remarks.

In his revision of the genera and subgenera of the fiddler crabs of the world, Bott (1973) established Tubuca and designated Gelasimus urvillei H. Milne Edwards, 1852 as the type species from the lectotype ( Bott 1973: fig. 11). The type specimens of Tubuca urvillei were supposedly collected from “Vanikoro” (an island between Solomon and Vanuatu) in the western Pacific. Crane (1975) queried this type locality noting that the species as she understood it did not occur outside the In dian Ocean. As such, Crane (1975) considered the data on the label to be wrong. Of the three extant type specimens of Gelasimus urvillei H. Milne Edwards, 1852, Crane (1975) selected the male as the lectotype, the other two females becoming paralectotypes (Fig. 1 F–G). Crane (1975) considered the male to be an immature specimen (CW 18.5 mm) but its G1 is actually already developed (present study). According to Litulo (2005), the smallest ovigerous female from Mozambique is only CW 10.0 mm. This suggests that the lectotype male, while small is probably already mature. In any case, the G1 of the lectotype of T. urvillei ( Crane 1975: fig. 9D) agrees well with the species as is now understood from southeastern Africa (cf. Fig. 5 E–H). They also agree in all other morphological characters.

A note on Gelasimus dussumieri H. Milne Edwards, 1852 (at present Tubuca dussumieri ) is necessary. The type material of Tubuca dussumieri include specimens from Samarang (Java, Indonesia) and Malabar (Mumbai, India) (H. Milne Edwards, 1852), and as no holotype was originally selected, Crane (1975) designated a male from Samarang as the lectotype of T. dussumieri . The paralectotype male from Malabar, however, she reidentified as T. urvillei instead. She also found that T. dussumieri and T. paradussumieri were sympatric in the western Pacific and eastern part of Indian Ocean. She reidentified all the records (including "T. acuta") from western Indian Ocean as T. urvillei , with one exception - the record of G. dussumieri by Hoffmann (1874: pl. 3(22)) and De Man (1891) from Nossy Faly, northern Madagascar, which was referred to T. paradussumieri instead. As no other record of T. paradussumieri from eastern Africa has been reported since 1874 ( Crosnier 1965), Crane (1975) regarded this specimen’s provenance as questionable. Another record of " T. dussumieri " from Bombay, western India ( Krishnan 1992) will also need to be confirmed in the future as well. In summary, Crane (1975) emphasized the westernmost distribution of the genus Tubuca (= Deltuca Crane, 1975) should be T. urvillei from southeastern Africa (Tanzania, Madagascar and South Africa), with the species also present in Pakistan and western India. Later, the species was reported from the Red Sea by Hogarth (1986) and Price et al. (1987).

With regard to the records of T. urvillei and T. acuta in Alcock (1900), Crane (1975: 61) considered only those from Pakistan and western India as belonging to true T. urvillei (shown as “(part)” behind these records). That is, she did not think or was uncertain if the records from the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea (e.g. Madras; Sunderbunds; Mergui; Andamans and Nicobars) by Alcock (1900) were also T. urvillei . Lundoer (1974) added a new record of " U. angustifrons (De Man, 1892)" from Phuket, Thailand, but this was later reidentified as T. urvillei by Frith et al. (1976) and Frith and Frith (1977a) (see also Frith and Frith 1978; Frith and Brunenmeister 1980, 1983; Jaroensutasinee et al. 2003; Jaroensutasinee and Jaroensutasinee 2004).