Lybia caestifera (Alcock, 1898)

Alrasheedi, Sami M, Alrashdi, Mousa N, Alhumaidan, Lama S, Alkhdairi, Ahmad, Alzweihary, Ali M, Alhussaini, Omar M, Alharbi, Lama S, Albalawi, Amirah N, Almutairi, Turki F, Alharbi, Osama A G & Bashal, Afaf A M, 2024, Crabs of the Families Tetraliidae, Trapeziidae and Xanthidae (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura) new to the Ogasawara Islands, Japan, Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science. Series A, Zoology 50 (1), pp. 1-17 : 9

Lybia caestifera (Alcock, 1898)

[Jn: Hime-kinchakugani]

( Fig. 2G)

Material examined. Chichi-jima Is. — Chichi-jima I., Futami Bay , on buoy, 1 Ə (NSMT-Cr 6856; cb 8.9×cl 6.8 mm), 17-V-1975, Y. Kurata leg. ; Ani-jima I., Takino-ura Bay (27°07′06″N, 142°12′15″E), 1 Ə (NSMT-Cr 31535; cb 3.6×cl 3.2 mm), 8-XI-2013, H. Komatsu leg.

Remarks. Lybia caestifera was recorded at present as the first occurrence in the Ogasawara Islands, but may be not uncommon in Japanese waters as shown by Takeda, Y. and Ohtsuchi (2020) who collected all the published data in Japan. The color pattern of the specimen examined ( Fig. 2G) is almost identical with the images of L. caestifera recorded by Kurata (1967, monochrome photograph), Sakai (1976, painting), and Takeda, Y. and Ohtsuchi (2020, in color photograph). In the Ogasawara Islands, the closely related Lybia leptochelis (Zehntner, 1894) has been recorded from the west of Chichi-jima Island, 81–83 m depth, with a color photograph in life, by Takeda and Komatsu (2018). Both species are without doubt close to each other, but clearly different from each other in color pattern.

The records of this species by Rathbun (1906, from Hawaii; 1907, from Tahiti), Bouvier (1915, from Mauritius) and Balss (1924, from the Red Sea) were doubted by Guinot (1976), and the synonymy with L. pugil (Alcock, 1898) is uncertain at present.

Distribution. So far as the literature concerned, this species is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific from the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean to Tahiti, Hawaii and Japan in the Pacific. As shortly mentioned by Takeda and Komatsu (2018), the photograph of L. leptochelis from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean given by Mendoza et al. (2014) is not referred to L. leptochelis , but to L. caestifera .