Some remarkable crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura) from Japan largely in the Nagai Collection of the Wakayama Prefectural Museum of Natural History

Abstract

Altogether nine crab species of five families from Japanese waters, viz., four species of the Parthenopidae, one species of the Portunidae, one species of the Xanthidae, one species of the Trapeziidae, and two species of the Pilumnidae, are recorded largely based on the specimens in the Nagai Collection of the Wakayama Prefectural Museum of Natural History. Most of them are rather rare in Japanese waters, and some of them are remarkably variable in the form and tuberculation of the carapace and chelipeds. Latopilumnus tubicolus Türkay & Schuhmacher, 1985 of the family Pilumnidae is considered to be synonymous with L. tuberculosus (Garth & Kim, 1983). Planopilumnus minabensis Sakai, 1969 and P. pygmaeus Takeda, 1977 of the Pilumnidae, both of which are currently referred to the genus Vellumnus Ng, 2010, are also reduced to junior synonyms of V. labyrinthicus (Miers, 1884).