Uca (Austruca) iranica Pretzmann, 1971

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 : 54

Uca (Austruca) iranica Pretzmann, 1971

Persian Gulf. Kuwait [ Clayton (1986) as Austruca lactea annulipes ; Collins et al. (1984) and Jones (1986a) as Uca lactea annulipes ; Naderloo et al. (2010)], UAE [Al-Ghais & Cooper (1986) and Hornby (1986) as Uca annulipes ; Apel & Türkay (1999) and Apel (2001) as Uca annulipes iranica ; Naderloo et al. (2010)], Iran [ Pretzmann (1971) as Uca annulipes annulipes and Uca annulipes iranica ; Mokhtari et al. (2008) as Uca lactea annulipes ; Naderloo et al. (2010); Mokhlesi et al., 2011 as Uca annulipes ; present study].

Iran. Hormozgan Province: Kolahi, Bandar-Tiab, Qeshm I. (13 stations around the island), Bandar-Abbas, Bandar- Pohl, Bandar-Khamir, Mahtabi, Bandar-Kong . Bushehr Province: Khalij-Nayband, Bandar-Banak, Bandar-Dayyer, Mond, Delvar, Ramleh, Bandar-Rig, Chah-Shur, Laylatayn, Bavirat, Emamzadeh Shah-Abdollah. Khuzestan Province: Mahshahr (Majidieh Fishery Jetty), Bandar Emam.

General distribution. Endemic: Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman.

Habitat. Muddy-sand intertidal, mangroves.

Remarks. Pretzmann (1971) described a new subspecies from Bandar-Abbas, Persian Gulf, namely Uca annulipes iranica , and recorded U. annulipes annulipes from the same locality. His new subspecies was described based on a regenerated cheliped of the male which is also seen in real Uca annulipes . Genetic (Shih et al. 2009) and morphological (Naderloo et al. 2010) studies revealed that Uca iranica is a valid species, and must be assigned to the subgenus Austruca Bott, 1973 , rather that subgenus Paraleptuca Bott, 1973 (see Naderloo et al. 2010). Uca (Austruca) iranica is closely related to U. (A.) annulipes and U. (A.) albimana , but is distinguishable from them using some morphological characters (see Naderloo et al. 2010). Uca (A.) albimana is sympatric with U. (A.) iranica in western Gulf of Oman and south-western of the Persian Gulf, while U. (A.) annulipes does not occurs in the Persian Gulf. Uca (A.) iranica is a common fiddler crab along north-eastern ( Kuwait and Iran, still no record from Iraq) and southern ( UAE) coasts of the Persian Gulf. Some biological aspects of the species have been studied by Mokhlesi et al. (2011); however, they misidentified the species as U. annulipes .