Goniopugettia Davie & Ng, 2024

Komai, Tomoyuki, Tsuchida, Shinji & Fujiwara, Yoshihiro, 2025, Records of brachyuran crabs (Decapoda) from seamounts in the Mariana Ridges, with description of a new species of Samadinia Ng & Richer de Forges, 2013, and rediscovery of Goniopugettia tanakae Sakai, 1986, Zootaxa 5722 (3), pp. 326-344 : 327-328

Genus Goniopugettia Davie & Ng, 2024

Goniopugettia Sakai, 1986: 2 (in part) (no type species selected, unavailable under ICZN Article 13.3).— Ng et al. 2001: 13 (in part).— Ng et al. 2008: 103 (in part).— Ng et al. 2017: 140.— Poore & Ahyong 2023: 597.

Goniopugettia Davie & Ng 2024: 499 .

Type species. Goniopugettia tanakae Sakai, 1986 ; by original designation. Gender feminine.

Updated diagnosis. Carapace pyriform; dorsal surface with regions well defined; pseudorostral spines fused along proximal half, dorsoventrally flattened, lateral margins with sharp edge, apically blunt; supraorbital eave very narrow, almost confluent with lateral edges of pseudorostral spine, preorbital tooth or spine hardly discernible; postorbital tooth short, triangular, inner surface gently concave; hiatus between supraorbital eave and postorbital tooth U-shaped; hepatic, epibranchial and mesobranchial spines prominent, parallel, directed laterally, each with rounded tip; epibranchial spine dorsoventrally flattened; cardiac and intestinal regions raised vertically but without spines or tubercles, posterior carapace margin unarmed, distinctly convex. Basal antennal article subrectangular, distinctly longer than broad, lateral margin almost straight to gently concave. Third maxilliped with ischium subrectangular, elongate. Cheliped and ambulatory legs with margins of merus, carpus, propodus and dactylus rounded or at most bluntly carinate (cheliped carpus and palm). First ambulatory leg (second pereopod) longest. Male third and fourth thoracic sternites fused without median sutures; fourth sternite prominently concave; sterno-pleonal cavity not reaching anteriorly to level of proximal margins of coxae of chelipeds. Male and female pleon with 6 free somites + telson; male pleon triangular, sixth somite rectangular. First gonopod slightly curved outward; distal part styliform with acutely pointed tip located at distolateral portion. Second gonopod short, tapering to weakly bilobed tip, flagellum absent.

Remarks. Sakai (1986) proposed a new genus Goniopugettia to accommodate two species: Pugettia sagamiensis Gordon, 1930 , and Goniopugettia tanakae Sakai, 1986 . No type species was selected, and consequently this name under Sakai’s authorship is not available under ICZN Article 13.3 ( ICZN 1999). Ng et al. (2008: 103) selected Goniopugettia tanakae Sakai, 1986 , as the type species of Goniopugettia but, as Davie & Ng (2024) argued, this action did not satisfy ICZN Article 16.1, because there was no declaration that they were intentionally establishing a new taxon. Davie & Ng (2024) resolved the situation by formally establishing Goniopugettia with G. tanakae as its type species.

The above generic diagnosis is updated from that of Ng et al. (2017), incorporating the male characteristics.

Recent studies have attempted to revise the status of Rochinia Milne-Edwards, 1875 and other allied genera ( Richer de Forges& Ng 2009; Lee et al.2019, 2020, 2021). One of the two species originally assigned to Goniopugettia by Sakai (1986), Pugettia sagamiensis , was assigned to Rochinia by Griffin & Tranter (1986a) at the almost same time. Ng et al. (2017) reappraised the taxonomic status of Goniopugettia and established a new genus, Tunepugettia , for Pugettia sagamiensis . Goniopugettia is readily recognized among allied epialtid genera by (1) the dorsoventrally flattened pseudorostral spines, (2) prominent, parallelly produced hepatic, epibranchial and mesobranchial spines, each with a rounded tip, (3) the cardiac and intestinal regions being raised vertically but without spines or tubercles, and (4) non-carinate or non-cristate margins of pereopod articles except for the cheliped carpus.