Quadrella maculosa Alcock, 1898

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 : 549-550

Quadrella maculosa Alcock, 1898

( Fig. 4A )

Restricted synonymy: Quadrella coronata var. maculosa Alcock, 1898: 226 .— Alcock, 1899b: pl. 38 fig. 2. Quadrella maculosa .— Rathbun, 1911: 235 (part).— Ward, 1942 a: 45 (part), pl. 3 fig. 5–6.— Guinot, 1967: 275.— Galil, 1986:

285, fig. 5C–F.— Galil & Clark, 1990: 372.— Castro, 1997: 63 (part, not pl. 7B).— Castro et al., 2004: 56.— Ng et al., 2008:

185. — Rao, 2010: 198.— Dev Roy & Nandi, 2012: 207.— Poupin et al., 2018: 39, fig. 12H.— Trivedi et al., 2018: 74.

Material examined. FSI/ CRUST: 237, 3 males (CL 10.0 mm, CW 7.0 mm), 5 females (CL 12.0 mm, CW 8.0 mm), 19°59.4’N, 86°47.6’E, 57–59 m, on Antipathes sp. , coll. K. Silambarasan, 17 October 2019 .

Distribution. Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Kenya, Madagascar, Seychelles, Mayotte, Réunion, Mauritius ( Poupin et al. 2018) and India ( Patel et al. 2022). The present record from Visakhapatnam extends its distribution to the northeast coast of India.

Commensalism. Associated with the gorgonian Antipathalia sp. ( Sakai 1980). In the present study, Quadrella maculosa was found attached to the black soft coral Antipathes sp. , from the Visakhapatnam coast.

Remarks. This distinctive species is recorded for the first time from the Visakhapatnam coast of India. The present specimen closely agrees with description given by ( Galil 1986; Shik & Mok 1996). In our specimen, the carpus of the chelipeds possesses a prominent distomesial spine, the submedian one appearing as a weak tubercle. Our eight specimens are adults. Galil (1986) described the dorsomesial margin of the cheliped merus as spiniform in juveniles, but obtuse in adults. In our specimens, the dorsomesial margin of the cheliped merus is spinous in females and obtuse in males. Moreover, the present specimens agree in all respects with the account of Shik & Mok (1996).

Figures

FIGURE 4. Brachyura associated with cnidarians collected from northwestern Bay of Bengal:A, Quadrella maculosa Alcock, 1898; B, Quadrella coronata Dana, 1852; C, Sphenomerides trapezioides (Wood-Mason in Wood-Mason & Alcock, 1891); D, Dorippoides facchino (Herbst, 1785).