Heteroptychus Baba, 2018

Baba, Keiji & Wicksten, Mary K., 2019, Chirostyloidean squat lobsters (Crustacea: Decapoda: Anomura) from the Galapagos Islands, Zootaxa 4564 (2), pp. 391-421 : 397

Genus Heteroptychus Baba, 2018

Remarks. This genus was recently established for an aberrant group of species in the genus Uroptychus , which is characterized by a well-depressed carapace with laterally or posteriorly inclined antennae, P4 very short, especially the carpus being 0.3–0.5 × as long as the P3 carpus, and the sternal plastron differing between sexes: the female sternal plastron is unusual, strongly excavated on the posterior margin, with the median parts of sternites 5–7 absorbed into sternite 4 (the left and right parts of sternites 5–7 discontinuous, interrupted by loss of median parts). Including the two new species described below, Heteroptychus contains 11 species, one from the western Atlantic, eight from the Indo-West Pacific, and now two from the eastern Pacific. Morphological differences among species are very slight, but molecular data, where available, clearly separate some species (Baba 2018).