Matutidae De Haan, 1835

Family Matutidae De Haan, 1835 View in CoL

Matuta planipes Fabricius, 1798 #

Matuta planipes View in CoL — Gordon 1931: 527; Wong et al. 2021: 8, fig. 7, pl. 1F.

Taxonomy: Chen (1993), Galil and Clark (1994), Chen and Sun (2002).

Type: Lectotype ò ZM 154-6 and paralectotypes in NHMD (designated by Galil and Clark 1994).

Type locality: “Oceano Indico ”, possibly Tharangambadi (= Tranquebar), India ( Fransen et al. 1997).

Distribution: Eastern Indian Ocean to West Pacific: from India, Southeast and East Asia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia ( Galil and Clark 1994; Chen and Sun 2002).

Habitat: Intertidal to subtidal; substrates sandy, muddy or shelly; depths 16 to 40 m ( Chen and Sun 2002).

Matuta victor ( Fabricius, 1781) View in CoL #

Matuta victor View in CoL — Stimpson 1907: 166; Gordon 1931: 527; Galil and Clark 1994: 39, fig. 7a, b, pl. 13(a, b).

? Matuta lunaris View in CoL — Shen 1940a: 214.

Matuta lunaris View in CoL — Poon and Chan 2001: 20, fig. 4; BKK Chan and Caley 2003: 86, 2 unnumb. figs.; Fong et al. 2005: 50, 3 unnumb. figs. [not Cancer lunaris Forskål, 1775 ].

Matuta lunata [sic] — Hill et al. 1975: 65; Morton 1976: 102; Hill et al. 1978: 92; Morton 1979a: 118, fig. 6.17; Hill and Phillipps 1981: 152, pl. 51g; Morton and Morton 1983: 157, fig. 9.5(1); ECK Wong 1990: 150.

Taxonomy: Galil and Clark (1994), Ng et al. (2002).

Type: Neotype ò ZM-49- 1 in NHMD (designated by Galil and Clark 1994).

Type locality: Tharangambadi (as Tranquebar) India (neotype).

Distribution: Western Indian Ocean to West Pacific: from Madagascar, East Africa, Red Sea, India, Southeast and East Asia reaching Japan, to Australia, New Hebrides and New Caledonia ( Galil and Clark 1994); recently reported as exotic species in eastern Mediterranean Sea ( Innocenti et al. 2017).

Habitat: Intertidal and shallow subtidal; sandy or shelly bottoms of depth 10 to 15 m ( Chen and Sun 2002).

Remarks: The local records of Matuta are somewhat confusing. Shen (1940a) listed only one species, “ M. lunaris ”, citing an Indian record of M. victor by Alcock (1896). Apparently, C.-J. Shen had considered Cancer lunaris Forskål, 1775 ( Matuta ; now Ashtoret ) and C. victor Fabricius, 1781 to be synonymous, the former having priority. Both species were shown to be distinct by Galil and Clark (1994), and A. lunaris has so far been reliably recorded from South China (Guangxi and Hainan; see Chen and Sun 2002). Apart from armature of male chelae ( Galil and Clark 1994; Chen and Sun 2002), A. lunaris can be distinguished by a slightly more elongate carapace, on which there are six visible conical tubercles, around each is an aggregate of small dark spots (cf. Sakai 1976: pl. 44(3) (as M. banksi ); versus Ng et al. 2002: fig. 2G). Among illustrations presented in local records, none display such features. According to our observations since the 2000s, M. victor is not uncommon along semi-exposed sandy shores, but we have not seen any specimens which can be identified with A. lunaris . For the moment, we treat all past local records of “ M. lunaris ” as M. victor instead.