Porcellanella triloba White, 1851

Silambarasan, Krishnan, Kar, Annada Bhusan, Prasad, Gummadi Venkata Ankineedu, Pattnayak, Sujit Kumar, Das, Pratyush, Reddy, Dwarampudi Bhami & Ramalingam, Lakshmana Perumal, 2023, On some commensal anomuran and brachyuran crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda) off Visakhapatnam, Northwestern Bay of Bengal, Zootaxa 5325 (4), pp. 541-555 : 547

Porcellanella triloba White, 1851

( Fig. 3C )

Restricted synonymy:

Porcellanella triloba White, 1851: 394 , fig. 2, 2a.— Henderson, 1888: 112.— Thurston, 1890: 83.— Henderson, 1893: 429.— Thurston, 1895: 120.— Miyake, 1942: 368, figs. 28–29.— Miyake, 1943: 134, figs. 54, 55A–F.— Jones, 1959: 178, fig. 1–2.— Sankarankutty, 1961: 96, fig. 1–12.— Sarojini & Nagabhushanam, 1968: 158, pl. 2 fig. 4.— Osawa & McLaughlin, 2010: 214.

Porcellanella picta Stimpson, 1858: 243 .— Sivasubramanian et al., 2014: 249, figs. 2–3.— Patel et al. 2022: 38.

Material examined. FSI/ CRUST: 233, 1 male (CL 11.2 mm, CW 8.0 mm), 2 females (CL 12.5 mm, CW 9.1 mm), 20°05.6’N, 84°45.8’E, 41–42 m, on sea pen Pteroeides esperi , coll. Annada Bhusan Kar, 17 October 2019 .

Distribution. East coast of Africa, Zanzibar, Persian Gulf, Singapore, Gulf of Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan ( Komai 2000) and India ( Patel et al. 2022). Now recorded after a gap of 50 years from Visakhapatnam, northeast coast of India.

Commensalism. Mostly associated with sea pens. In the present study, P. triloba was collected from the sea pen Pteroeides esperi Herklots, 1858 . Jones (1959) and Sankarankutty (1961) also recorded P. triloba from the same sea pen, Pteroeides esperi , from the Gulf of Mannar. Sarojini & Nagabhushanam (1968) collected P. triloba from sea anemones from Visakhapatnam coast. Becker (1996) recorded the species (as Porcellanella picta ) associated with Anthozoa from the Gulf of Thailand.

Remarks. The present specimens agree with the original description given by Miyake (1942, 1943) and the colouration described by Henderson (1888, 1893). Henderson described the original specimens with the following remarks.

1. In White’s species, the median frontal projection slightly exceeds the lateral ones, and its apex is rounded, while the first or most proximal of the four spinules on the ambulatory dactylus is very small.

2. In Stimpson’s species the median frontal tooth is slightly longer and sub-acute, the four spinules of the dactylus are subequal.

Miyake’s (1942) description recorded and figured P. triloba from the Palau Islands, off Malagal Island. His figure, compared with original figure given by White (1851), shows some more important differences. The frontal lobes are very rounded the carapace is narrower. The present specimen closely agrees in all respects with that reported by Miyake (1942), especially in the nature of basal antennular segment, the nature of the front and size of the spinules on the dactylus of the walking legs is the longest.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Anomura associated with cnidarians and poriferans collected from Northwestern Bay of Bengal: A, Allogalathea elegans (Adams & White, 1848); B, Petrolisthes lamarckii (Leach, 1820); C, Porcellanella triloba White, 1851; D, Polyonyx hendersoni Southwell, 1909; E, Pisidia gordoni (Johnson, 1970).