Brachyura, Linnaeus, 1758

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 : 7

Infraorder Brachyura

The Persian Gulf brachyuran crabs are relatively well known. Heller (1861) recorded Epixanthus frontalis from the northern Gulf. Alcock (1895, 1896, 1898, 1899 a, 1899b, 1900, 1901, 1905) has recorded 51 brachyuran species from the Gulf in his works on the crabs of India. Unfortunately, the Persian Gulf sampling localities of Alcock (1895 - 1900) were not mentioned and it is thought that some localities were outside the Gulf (see Apel 2001). Nobili (1906a) recorded 50 brachyuran species from the Gulf, the majority of which from the Arabian side, particularly from the UAE coast. MacGilchrist (1905) recorded seven species and Klunzinger (1913) and Chopra & Das (1930) each recorded one. Stephensen (1946) identified 124 species from the collections made by the Danish Expedition in 1937/38. He updated the number of brachyuran species to 162. Titgen (1982) listed 196 species from the Gulf, although most of his material was not properly studied and the identification of some species is highly questionable (see Apel 2001). Apel (2001) thoroughly reviewed all faunistic and taxonomic works on the Brachyura of the Gulf and undertook intensive sampling along the Saudi Arabian and UAE coasts. He tentatively gave as 188 the valid number of the Gulf Brachyura . Some brachyuran groups have recently received special attention, and several new species have been described ( Galil, 2001a, 2001 b, 2005, 2009; Naderloo & Türkay 2009, 2010; Naderloo & Schubart 2010; Castro & Ng 2010; Naderloo et al. 2011) and some species have been recorded from the region for the first time (see Naderloo & Sari 2005a, 2007a, b; Naderloo & Türkay 2009; Naderloo 2011). The total number of the known brachyuran crabs of the Persian Gulf now stands at 198. A toal of 83 shallow water brachyuran species are recorded here from the Iranian coast, of which eight are new records for the Persian Gulf. Micippa platipes (Herbst, 1803) , Macromedaeus voeltzkowi (Lenz, 1905) , Medaeops neglectus (Balss, 1920) , Menippe rumphii (Fabricius, 1798) Pseudozius caystrus (Adams & White, 1849) , Heteropanope glabra (Stimpson, 1858) , Pilumnus incanus (Forskål, 1775) , and Arcotheres placunae (Hornell & Southwell, 190). Five additional species are only recorded from the Iranian coast: Cryptodromia fallax (Lamarck, 1818) , Macrophthalmus grandidieri A. Milne-Edwards, 1867 , Macrophthalmus sinuspersici Naderloo, Türkay & 2010, Nanosesarma jousseaumei (Nobili, 1906) , and Thalassograpsus harpax (Hilgendorf, 1892) .