Mithraculus coryphe (Herbst, 1801)

(Fig. 10A)

Cancer coryphe Herbst, 1801: 8, pl. 11, fig. 63 [type-locality: not stated].

Mithrax sculptus . — Desbonne in Desbonne & Schramm, 1867: 9; Rathbun 1897: 11. [not Mithrax sculptus Lamarck, 1818].

Mithrax (Mithraculus) coryphe .— Rathbun, 1921: 84; 1925: 426, pl. 153; 1933: 21; Coelho & Ramos 1972: 216; Keith 1985: 257, fig. 4D.

Mithraculus coryphe . — Wagner 1990: 36–43, figs. 40–43; García et al. 1998: 27; Melo 1996: 228, unnumbered fig.; Ng et al. 2008: 120; Alves et al. 2012: 942, fig. 3A; Lira et al. 2013: 54, tab. 1; Windsor & Felder 2014: 147, tab. 1, 152, 156, figs. 3I; 157, fig. 4J; García & Capote 2015: 9, fig. 4i; Carmona-Suárez & Poupin 2016: 370, fig. 6E; Assugeni et al. 2017: 1630, tab. 1; González-Gómez et al. 2018: 11, tab. 1; Poupin 2018: 194; Mantelatto et al. 2020: 39, fig. 13A; Jarquín-González et al. 2022: 6, tab. 2, 8, fig. 2.

Distribution. Western Atlantic: USA (Florida), Bahamas, Cuba, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Gulf of Mexico, St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, Anguilla, St. Martin, St. Barthélemy, Saba, St. Eustatius, Barbuda, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Panama, Isla de Aves, Martinique, Barbados, Grenada, Tobago, Trinidad, Los Frailes, Isla de Blanquilla, Isla de Margarita, Cubagua, Tortuga, Los Roques, Bonaire, Curaçao, Aruba, Colombia, and Venezuela (Rathbun 1925; Garcia & Capote 2015; Carmona-Suárez & Poupin 2016; Poupin 2018).

Material examined. Barbados, Carlisle Bay, St. Michael, subtidal, 13°05’07.15”N, 59°36’36.90”W, 1 Ô CW: 8.2 mm (BLSZ 121) . One Sandy Lane, St. James, subtidal, 13°10’04.70”N, 59°38’17.48”W, 2 Ô CW: 8.2, 9.5 mm (BLSZ 030) . Ocean Two, Christ Church, subtidal, 13°03’53.65”N, 59°34’1.96”W, 1 Ô CW: 15.5 mm (BLSZ 167) . Idem, 1 Ô, CW: 11.7 mm (BLSZ 212) . Shermans, St. Peter, subtidal, 13°16’7.25”N, 59°38’43.73”W, 1 Ô CW: 6.0 mm (MZUSP 40909) .

Remarks. Specimens of Mithraculus coryphe were caught in crab traps placed on sandy bottom (~ 4m deep) on the west and south coasts of Barbados. Ovigerous females were collected in October 2019. Rathbun (1921: 84) reported several specimens of Mithraculus coryphe (three males, four ovigerous females, one juvenile, USNM 71995; two males, one female, USNM 58019; one male, two ovigerous females, USNM 71708) collected by the Barbados-Antigua Expedition in 1918 at depths of 115–198 m (64–110 fathoms) on the east coast of Barbados and at Pelican Island. Additional specimens were also collected during this expedition and are stored at the USNM (69032, 68853, 69060, 71706, 71704, 71707, 71706, 58018, 69039, 69082, and 71995). Rathbun (1921) did not mention these specimens in her report. The Smithsonian-Hartford expedition (1937) also collected specimens of Mithraculus coryphe, which were deposited to the USNM (75056, 73322). Jones (1969: 382) also reported this species for Barbados. Mithraculus coryphe can be identified by the presence of three lobes on the anterolateral margins of the carapace (Wagner 1990).