Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 November 2020 | 12(15): 17153–17160
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4429.12.15.17153-17160
#4429 | Received 01 April 2019 | Final
received 27 July 2020 | Finally accepted 07 November 2020
Checklist of brachyuran mangrove
crabs of Kerala, India
Kurian Mathew Abraham 1 & Apreshgi
Kolothuthara Prakasan
2
1,2 Department of Aquatic Biology and
Fisheries, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695581, India.
1 kurianma@gmail.com (corresponding
author), 2 apreshgikp@yahoo.co.in
Editor: Anonymity requested. Date
of publication: 26 November 2020 (online & print)
Citation: Abraham, K.M. & A.K. Prakasan (2020). Checklist of
brachyuran mangrove crabs of Kerala, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(15): 17153–17160. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4429.12.15.17153-17160
Copyright: © Abraham & Prakasan 2020. Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution
of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and
the source of publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The authors
declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: The second author acknowledge the
E-grants fellowship from Government of Kerala.
Lab and other facilities are provided by Department of Aquatic Biology
and Fisheries, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram. Also, thanks to prof. A. Biju Kumar for the
help rendered in crab identification and critically evaluating this
article. Thanks are also due to prof.
Peter K.L. Ng (National University of Singapore) and prof. Christoph D. Schubart (University of Regensburg, Germany) for the
confirmation of few species.
Abstract: Checklist of brachyuran mangrove
crabs from Kerala, western coast of India is presented in this paper with
re-validation of nomenclature since many of the crab species have been renamed
so far, and no reports have been published from mangroves of Kerala. A total of 18 true mangrove crabs were
identified from different mangroves associated with estuaries along the western
coastline of Kerala State, of which four crab genera were renamed and
revalidated and all species were photo-documented during the present
study. The paper enlists the taxonomic
account of the true mangrove crabs known so far from Kerala mangrove
ecosystems.
Keywords: Brachyura, checklist, Kerala, mangrove
crab, Crutsacea, Portunidae,
Grapsidae, Sesarmidae, Ocypodidae.
Brachyurans are the most
promising and prominent group of crabs, because of their great diversity;
comprising of about 6,793 species, 1,721 genera, and 93 families recorded
globally (Ng et al. 2008). Brachyuran
crabs perform a significant role in the mangrove ecosystems and are
commercially valuable with high culture and fattening potential (Tan & Ng
1994). Mangrove ecosystems warrant more
attention as it is diminishing day by day, especially along Kerala coastline
and its importance protecting the environment from natural catastrophes are
increasing. Mangroves are fragile
ecosystem having highly variable conditions of life style, which make them
profusely rich in biodiversity (Kathiresan & Qasim 2005). The
ecosystem value of mangroves overwhelms any other ecosystem as it gives very
many services, including biodiversity richness.
Distribution studies of brachyuran crabs, especially the mangrove crab
in Indian mangroves are scanty (Joel et al. 1985) and the available literature
discusses the distribution of both marine and estuarine/mangrove crabs
together.
Literature regarding crabs of
mangrove ecosystems of Kerala was comparatively meager apart from that of few
individual report and citations of each crab species. Kathirvel (2008)
reported 990 species of marine brachyuran crabs belonging to 281 genera and 36
families from Indian waters. Thirty-six
brachyuran crab species were identified from Pichavaram
mangroves by Soundarapandian et al. (2008).
A study reveals that 33 mangrove crab species belonging to the family Grapsidae and Ocypodidae were
available from the state of Tamil Nadu (Wilson & Ravichandran 2013). A comprehensive approach to document the
diversity and abundance of true mangrove crabs were lacking especially from
Kerala, which was considered to be one of the crab-rich states (Rajesh et al.
2017). The first publication in this
respect was by Pillai (1951), who provided an account of the brachyuran crabs
of Travancore. In a report on mangroves
and their faunal associates, Radhakrishnan et al. (2006) provided a list of 25
species of crustaceans, including 20 species of brachyuran crabs associated
with marine, estuarine and mangroves of Kerala. Devi et al. (2015) recorded 24 species of
crabs belonging to 16 genera and eight families from the Cochin backwaters of
Kerala. A preliminary study on true
mangrove crabs reported 14 crabs from various mangrove habitats of Kerala (Apreshgi 2014) and Apreshgi &
Abraham (2019) observed 12 species from Puthuvype
mangrove belt at Ernakulam, Kerala.
Recently Ng & Devi (2020) reported a new tree spider crab, Leptarma biju from
mangrove area of Chithari River, Kasargode
District, Kerala. The brachyuran
diversity of Kerala coastline mangrove ecosystem has not been documented and
the present study presents the check list of the brachyuran crabs and
photo-documents the diversity along with revalidation of crab nomenclature.
Materials and Methods
A survey of crabs of different
estuarine mangrove ecosystems along the western coastline of Kerala was carried
out from June 2016 to May 2017. Crabs
were collected live by handpicking, opening of burrows, bait trap and normal
traditional trap kept overnight.
Collected specimens were preserved in alcohol (70%) after
anaesthetization and ice killing. Crab
specimens were collected from a total of 14 mangrove locations from nine
districts of Kerala State (Fig. 1). The
collected specimens were washed thoroughly in situ and photo-documented without
much disturbance to obtain natural colour and
morphology. Specimens were brought to
the laboratory for further identification and after specimen confirmation,
specimens of three species (Austruca annulipes, Austruca
perplexa, and Parasesarma
bengalense) were submitted in the repositories of
Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala,
Thiruvananthapuram, (Voucher numbers DABFUK-AR-BR-52,53; DABFUK-AR-BR-54,55;
DABFUK/AR-BR-72, 73 respectively).
Identification and classification were done using standard keys and
publications (Pillai 1951; Sakai 1976; Sethuramalingam
& Khan 1991; Roy & Das 2000; Roy 2008).
Ng et al. (2008) was followed for classification and validity of the
names of the brachyuran crabs were cross-checked with information from World
Register of Marine Species (WoRMS 2020;
http://www.marinespecies.org) and conservation status of each species was
verified from the IUCN Red List of threatened species (IUCN 2017).
Results and
Discussion
A total of 18 species of true
mangrove crabs under four families (Portunidae, Grapsidae, Sesarmidae, and Ocypodidae) and 11 genera were identified and documented in
the present study. Highest number
species was recorded from the family Sesarmidae
(seven species) followed by Portunidae and Ocypodidae with four species each and Grapsidae
with three species (Table 1 & Images 1–18). Scylla serrata,
Scylla olivacea, and Thalamita
crenata were the economically valuable crab
species. Among different species, Parasesarma bengalense
was reported for the first time from the western coast of India and Clistocoeloma lanatum
was reported for the first time from Kerala mangroves. Pseudosesarma
glabrum was one of the rare species and was
recently reported from Cochin in southwestern India (Ng et al. 2017). Parasesarma
plicatum was the common crab species encountered
throughout west coastline mangrove ecosystems of Kerala.
Pillai (1951) and Chhapgar (1957) reported the occurrence of crabs from
mangrove habitats around Travancore and Bombay respectively without much of its
taxonomic identity. After a long gap,
Krishnamurthy & Jeyaseelan (1981) reported the
presence of 20 species of crabs from Pichavaram
mangroves, which includes true mangrove as well as estuarine crabs. There are several taxonomic works on the
brachyuran crabs of estuarine and mangrove ecosystems of India (Chakraborty et
al. 1986; Mandal & Nandi 1989; Chakraborty & Chaudhury 1992; Roy &
Das 2000; Radhakrishnan et al. 2006). A
total of 55 species of brachyuran crabs represented under 31 genera have been
reported earlier from different mangrove habitats of India (Roy & Das
2000). But none of the above reports
exclusively documented mangrove crabs, in fact they included estuarine, marine
forms in addition to mangrove crabs.
Eighteen species of brachyuran crabs under nine genera and four families
were identified exclusively from Sunderban mangrove
ecosystems (Chakraborty & Chaudhury 1992).
Mangrove fauna of Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Das & Roy 1989)
enlisted 31 species of crabs from Andaman mangals and
briefly dealt with zonation and annual breeding pattern of some of the crabs.
Even though nomenclature of many
crabs has been changed by different taxonomists, genus name of four crabs has
been changed or revalidated recently; Perisesarma bengalense
has been changed to Parasesrma (WoRMS 2020), genus Uca has been renamed as Austruca
for Uca annulipes
and Uca perplexa
and for Uca vocans
renamed as Gelasimus vocans (WoRMS 2020). Many taxa belonging to the genus Perisesarma have been changed to Parasesarma
(Shahdadi & Schubart
2018), however, Perisesarma dussumieri, without any name changes is the type
species of the genus Perisesarma owing to its
original characters of the genus (Shahdadi & Schubart 2018). All
the crabs documented in the present study were listed as ‘Least Concern’ status
of IUCN Red list of the threatened species (IUCN 2017), which may be due to
lack of baseline data about abundance and distribution the true mangrove crabs.
Conclusion
The present investigation
revealed 18 true brachyuran mangrove crab species along estuarine mangroves of
western coast of Kerala. Family Sesarmidae constitute the major diversity (seven species)
followed by Portunidae (four species) and Ocypodidae (four species), and least in Grapsidae
(three species) of mangrove crabs. Among
the 18 brachyuran crabs, four crabs have been revalidated by change in genus or
species name and provided in a checklist along with photo-documention
of true mangrove crabs of Kerala estuarine systems.
Table 1. Checklist of mangrove
brachyuran crabs from Kerala.
|
Family |
Scientific name/Revalidated
name |
Original name/Synonym |
Common name |
Image no. |
|
Portunidae |
Scylla olivacea
(Herbst,
1796) |
Cancer olivacea
Herbst,
1796 |
Orange Mud Crab |
Image 1 |
|
Scylla serrata
(Forskål, 1775) |
Cancer serrata
Forskål, 1775 |
Green Mud Crab |
Image 2 |
|
|
Scylla tranquebarica
(Fabricius, 1798) |
Cancer tranquearica
Fabricius, 1798 |
Mangrove Mud Crab |
Image 3 |
|
|
Thalamita crenata Ruppell, 1830 |
Thalamita crenata Ruppell, 1830 |
Crenate Swimming Crab |
Image 4 |
|
|
Grapsidae |
Metopograpsus latifrons (White, 1847) |
Grapsus latifrons White, 1847 |
Purple-Claw Mudflat Crab |
Image 5 |
|
Metopograpsus messor (Forskal, 1775) |
Cancer messor
Forskal, 1775 |
Messor's Shore-Crab |
Image 6 |
|
|
Metopograpsus thukuhar (Owen, 1839) |
Grapsus thukuhar Owen, 1839 |
Thukuhar Shore-Crab |
Image 7 |
|
|
Sesarmidae |
Clistocoeloma lanatum (Alcock, 1900) |
Sesarma lanatum Alcock, 1900 |
Far Bodied Mudflat Crab |
Image 8 |
|
Neosarmatium malabaricum (Henderson, 1893) |
Sarmatium malabaricum Henderson 1893 |
Violet Mudflat Crab |
Image 9 |
|
|
Parasesarma bengalense (Davie, 2003)* |
Perisesarma bangalense Davie, 2003 |
Bengal Mangrove Crab |
Image 10 |
|
|
Parasesarma pictum (De Haan, 1835) |
Grapsus (Pachysoma) pictum DeHaan, 1835 |
Mangrove Mudflat Crab |
Image 11 |
|
|
Parasesarma plicatum (Latreille, 1803) |
Ocypode plicatum Latreille, 1803 |
Orange-claw Marsh Crab |
Image 12 |
|
|
Perisesarma dussumieri (Edwards, 1853) |
Sesarna dussumieri, Edwards, 1853 |
Yellow-claw Mudflat Crab |
Image 13 |
|
|
Pseudosesarma glabrum Ng, 2017 |
Pseudosesarma glabrum, Ng, 2017 |
Glabrous Mangrove Crab |
Image 14 |
|
|
Ocypodidae |
Austruca annulipes (Edwards, 1837)* |
Gelasimus annulipes Edwards, 1837 |
Ring-legged Fiddler Crab |
Image 15 |
|
Austruca perplexa (Edwards, 1852)* |
Gelasimus perplexa H. Edwards, 1837 |
Perplexing Fiddler Crab |
Image 16 |
|
|
Gelasimus vocans (Linnaeus, 1758)* |
Cancer vocans
Linnaeus,
1758 |
Calling Fiddler Crab |
Image 17 |
|
|
Macrophthalmus (Mareotis) depressus (Ruppell, 1830) |
Macrophthalmus depressus, Ruppell, 1830 |
Cream-claw Mud Crab |
Image 18 |
For
figure & images - - click here
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