Gopkittisak Naruse & Clark, 2009

Lasley Jr, Robert M., Anker, Arthur & Naruse, Tohru, 2024, Two new species and a new record of infaunal crabs (Decapoda: Brachyura: Pinnotheridae and Varunidae) from Oman and Saudi Arabia, Zootaxa 5476 (1), pp. 207-229 : 218

Gopkittisak Naruse & Clark, 2009

Gopkittisak Naruse & Clark, 2009: 62 .

Type species. Gopkittisak gallardoi ( Serène & Soh, 1976) = Asthenognathus gallardoi Serène & Soh, 1976 , by original designation.

Remarks. The genus Gopkittisak hitherto comprised two species: G. gallardoi ( Serène & Soh, 1976) and G. angustum Komai, 2011 . Naruse & Clark (2009) established Gopkittisak for the species at that time known as Asthenognathus gallardoi , originally described from the Andaman Sea ( Serène & Soh 1976), and placed the genus in the subfamily Gaeticinae . In his detailed description of G. angustum from the Ryukyu Islands, Japan, Komai (2011) stated that the specimens reported as G. gallardoi from Panglao, Philippines, by Naruse & Clark (2009) more likely represent G. angustum . This author also mentioned that other records of G. gallardoi from the western Pacific, e.g., southern Vietnam ( Serène & Soh 1976) and southern China ( Jiang et al. 2007, as A. gallardoi ), need to be verified, and that at least the latter record may also refer to G. angustum . On the other hand, records of G. gallardoi from Pakistan ( Ghani & Tirmizi 1991; Tirmizi & Ghani 1996) were considered as correct by Komai (2011). Thus, based on the presently available data, G. gallardoi is known with certainty from the Andaman Sea to Pakistan in the northern Indian Ocean, whereas G. angustum appears to be distributed from southern Japan to the Philippines in the western Pacific Ocean. The description of a third species of Gopkittisak from Oman (see below) extends the known distribution of the genus to the western Indian Ocean.