Athanas dimorphus Ortmann 1894

Naderloo, Reza & Türkay, Michael, 2012, Decapod crustaceans of the littoral and shallow sublittoral Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf: Faunistics, Biodiversity and Zoogeography 3374, Zootaxa 3374 (1), pp. 1-67 : 11

Athanas dimorphus Ortmann 1894

Persian Gulf. Kuwait ( Jones 1986a); Iran ( Sheibani 2008; present study).

Iran. Hormozgan Province: Qeshm I. (ten stations around the island), Hengam I . Bushehr Province: Delvar, ( Eli Village ) , Bushehr (Jofreh).

General distribution. Indo-West Pacific: East Africa ( Tanzania), Suez Canal, Red Sea, Djibouti, Persian Gulf, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Philippines, Australia (Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, NSW), New Caledonia, Marshall Islands.

Habitat. Rocky/cobble intertidal. Chace (1988) mentioned that this species is commonly found in detritus on shallow reef flats, rarely to a depth of 115 m. All specimens in this study were collected under rocks in rocky shores.

Remarks. Athanas dimorphus was found to be the most common species of Athanas on the Iranian coast. Banner & Banner (1966) described a subspecies from Thailand, A. dimorphus seedang and commented that the only difference with A. dimorphus is the size of the chelipeds in females, which are nearly as long as the merus in A. dimorphus and half as long as the merus in their subspecies. In the examined material the ratio is identical with A. dimorphus Ortmann, 1894 . Athanas dimorphus seeding was synonymized with A. dimorphus by Chace (1988). A brief description of the Persian Gulf specimens was provided by Sheibani (2008).