Portunidae

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Portunidae
Liocarcinus depurator
Scientific classification
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Subphylum:
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Family:
Portunidae

Subfamilies
  • Caphyrinae Guérin, 1832
  • Carcininae MacLeay, 1838
  • Carupinae Paul'son, 1875
  • Podophthalminae Dana, 1851
  • Polybiinae Ortmann, 1893
  • Portuninae Rafinesque, 1815
  • Thalamitinae Paul'son, 1875

Portunidae is a family of crabs which contains the swimming crabs.

Description

Portunid crabs are characterised by the flattening of the fifth pair of legs into broad paddles, which are used for swimming.[2] This ability, together with their strong, sharp claws, allows many species to be fast and aggressive predators.[2]

Examples

Its members include many well-known shoreline crabs, such as the European shore crab (Carcinus maenas), blue crab (Callinectes sapidus), velvet crab (Necora puber) and lady crab (Ovalipes ocellatus). Two genera in the family are contrastingly named Scylla and Charybdis; the former contains the economically important species black crab (Scylla serrata) and Scylla paramamosain.

Taxonomy

The circumscription of the family varies, with some authors treating "Carcinidae", "Catoptridae" and "Macropipidae" as separate families,[1] and others considering them subfamilies of a wider Portunidae.[3] Swimming crabs reach their greatest species diversity in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[4]

Extinct genera are marked with an obelisk.

Caphyrinae Guérin, 1832
Carcininae MacLeay, 1838
Carupinae Paul’son, 1875
Podophthalminae Dana, 1851
Polybiinae Ortmann, 1893
Portuninae Rafinesque, 1815
Thalamitinae Paul’son, 1875
incertae sedis

References

  1. ^ a b Sammy De Grave; N. Dean Pentcheff; Shane T. Ahyong; et al. (2009). "A classification of living and fossil genera of decapod crustaceans" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Suppl. 21: 1–109.
  2. ^ a b P. J. F. Davie (2002). "Portunidae". Crustacea: Malocostraca: Eucarida (Part 2), Decapoda: Anomura, Brachyura. Volume 19 of Zoological catalogue of Australia, Australia. CSIRO Publishing. pp. 442–446. ISBN 978-0-643-05677-0.
  3. ^ Peter K. L. Ng, Danièle Guinot & Peter J. F. Davie (2008). "Systema Brachyurorum: Part I. An annotated checklist of extant Brachyuran crabs of the world" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 17: 1–286.
  4. ^ "WoRMS taxon details, Ovalipidae Spiridonov, Neretina & Schepetov, 2014". World Register of Marine Species. 2019. doi:10.14284/170. Retrieved 2019-12-29.

External links