Plagusia depressa ( Fabricius, 1775 )

Parasram, Nadeshinie, Santana, William & Vallès, Henri, 2023, Checklist of the shallow-water marine Brachyura (Crustacea: Decapoda) of Barbados, West Indies, Zootaxa 5314 (1), pp. 1-62 : 46

Plagusia depressa ( Fabricius, 1775)

( Fig. 20D )

Cancer depressus Fabricius 1775: 406 [type-locality: “in mari mediterraneo” from Chace & Hobbs 1969: 192; type not found].

Plagusia sayi De Kay, 1842: 16 .

Plagusia gracilis de Saussure, 1858: 449 .

Plagusia depressa . —Say 1817: 100; Rathbun 1897: 35; 1918: 332, pl. 101; 1920: 25; 1921: 71; 1924: 18; 1933: 93; 1936: 387; Monod 1956: 455, figs. 614–617; Williams 1965: 223, fig. 207; Chace & Hobbs 1969: 192, figs. 63 r–t, 63; Rodríguez 1980: 398; Williams 1984: 463, fig. 372; Keith 1985: 272, fig. 11A; Scelzo & Varela 1988: 37; Melo 1996: 458, unnumbered fig.; Carré 2005: 23; Garcia & Capote 2015: 17, fig. 8f; Poupin 2018: 227; Tavares & Mendonça 2022: 102 .

Distribution. Western and Eastern Atlantic. Western Atlantic: USA (North Carolina, Florida), Bermuda, Jamaica, Gulf of Mexico, St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Martin, Guadeloupe, Panamá, Isla de Aves, Dominica, Martinique, Barbados, Trinidad, Isla de Blanquilla, Isla de Margarita, Isla de Cubagua, Tortuga, Bonaire, Curaçao, Colombia, Brazil, Fernando de Noronha, and Trinidade; Eastern Atlantic: Azores, Canary, Cape Verde, and Morocco to Angola ( Keith 1985; Rathbun 1987; Poupin 2018; Tavares & Mendonça 2022).

Material examined. Barbados, Maycocks, St. Lucy , nearshore rubble, 13°17’44.65”N, 59°38’59.16”W, 2 Ô, 1 ♀ (ovig.) CW: 32.2, 27.8, 28.5 mm ( BLSZ 105 ) . Coconut Court , Christ Church, nearshore rubble, 13°04’31.59”N, 59°36’13.78”W, 1 Ô, 1 ♀ CW: 10.2, 10.6 mm ( MZUSP 40922 ) .

Remarks. Specimens of Plagusia depressa were caught by hand in nearshore rubble habitat (splash zone). This species is very abundant in Barbados and can always be seen on the same rocks as Grapsus grapsus . Ovigerous female collected in August 2020. Rathbun (1921: 78) reported specimens of Plagusia depressa (one male, USNM 74501; one female, USNM 58043) collected by the Barbados-Antigua Expedition in 1918. The Smithsonian-Hartford Expedition in 1937 collected one juvenile male specimen of Plagusia depressa , which was deposited at the USNM 74995 by W.L. Schmitt.

Figures

FIGURE 20. Superfamily Grapsoidea MacLeay, 1838, dorsal habitus: A, Grapsus grapsus (Linnaeus, 1758), female (juv.), cw 26.6 mm (BLSZ 231); B, Pachygrapsus transversus (Gibbes, 1850), male, cw 10.2 mm (BLSZ 209); C, Percnon gibbesi (H. Milne Edwards, 1853), male, 20.8 mm (BLSZ 117); D, Plagusia depressa (Fabricius, 1775), female, cw 10.6 mm (MZUSP 40922). Scale bars = 20 mm.