Uca (Cranuca) inversa (Hoffman, 1874)

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 : 53-54

Uca (Cranuca) inversa (Hoffman, 1874)

Persian Gulf. UAE ( Al-Ghais & Cooper 1996; Apel & Türkay 1999; Apel 2001), Iran (present study).

Iran. Hormozgan Province: Qeshm I. (Naghasheh, Band-Chapi, Holor).

General distribution. Western Indian Ocean: South Africa, East Africa, Madagascar, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, southern Oman (Dhofar), Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman.

Habitat. Muddy intertidal, mangroves.

Remarks. Collins et al. (1984) recorded this species from Iran in the northern Persian Gulf. Apel & Türkay

(1999) mentioned that the specimen recorded by Collins et al. (1984) was deposited in the Natural History Museum of London is actually from the Gulf of Oman. Beinlich & von Hagen (2006) introduced a new subgenus, namely Cranuca for this species which is considered of being part of an ancestral base for wide-front fiddler crabs which is characterized by combining a wide front and lacking a pleonal clasping apparatus. This species is common in the Red Sea, living sympatrically with Uca albimana along muddy shores and mangroves. Both of these species have been recorded from the south-western Persian Gulf along the coast of the UAE ( Apel & Türkay 1999). This record shows that U. inversa distributed northward, now colonizing in Qeshm I., whereas U. albimana is restricted to the south-western part of the Persian Gulf.