Demania reynaudii (H. Milne Edwards, 1834)

Demania reynaudii (H. Milne Edwards, 1834) View in CoL # ( Figs. 24 View Fig , 39A View Fig )

? Xantho reynaudi — Morton and Morton 1983: 273, fig. 12.9(11). Demania reynaudii View in CoL — present record.

Taxonomy: Guinot (1979), Garth and Ng (1985), Ng and Yang (1989).

Type: Holotype ñ MP-B3027S in MNHN ( Guinot 1979).

Type locality: “mer des Indes”: Indian Ocean, precise locality unspecified.

Distribution: Indian Ocean to Southeast and East Asia: Indian Ocean (type locality), Vietnam, the Philippines, South China, Taiwan and Japan ( Ng and Yang 1989).

Habitat: Subtidal; associated with coral or rocky reefs.

Remarks: Xantho reynaudii H. Milne Edwards, 1834 and X. scaberrima Walker, 1887 had long considered synonymous since Odhner (1925). Various past records in the region, including works of Sakai (1939), Buitendijk (1950) and Takeda and Miyake (1969a), had adopted this synonymy (see Garth and Ng 1985), until Guinot (1969a 1979) separated them. Both species had been recorded in local literature. The local record of X. reynaudii by Morton and Morton (1983) is based on a sketch of the animal (fig. 12.9(11)), but it is too schematic to be precisely identified. However, we have recently examined material identified as D. reynaudii from off Clear Water Bay, hence confirming its presence in the territorial seas. A large male individual (76.6 × 52.5 mm) is herein illustrated.

The present species had been reported to be poisonous to humans if ingested ( Alcala et al. 1988; Tsai et al. 1997), and this is probably also true for D. scaberrima (see Garth and Alcala 1977).

Demania scaberrima (Walker, 1887) #

Lophoxanthus scaberrimus — Balss 1922b: 126; Gee 1926: 163 [list]; Shen 1940a: 224.

Demania scaberrima View in CoL — Blackmore and Rainbow 2000: app. 1; Wong et al. 2021: 58, fig. 96, pl. 18C.

Taxonomy: Guinot (1979), Garth and Ng (1985), Ng and Yang (1989).

Type: Syntype probably in NHM (original text; Johnson 1970).

Type locality: Singapore.

Distribution: Eastern Indian Ocean to South China Sea and East Asia: East India, Andaman Sea, Montebello Island ( Australia), to South China Sea and East Asia to Japan ( Garth and Ng 1985; Jones and Berry 2000).

Habitat: Subtidal; near shore substrates, rocky or sandy; depths 15 to 35 m ( Dai and Yang 1991).

Remarks: Likely to be a toxic species; see Remarks under D. reynaudii above.

Leptodius affinis (De Haan, 1835) #

Chlorodius exaratus View in CoL — Stimpson 1858a: 34 [part: see Remarks below] [not Chlorodius exaratus H. Milne Edwards, 1834 View in CoL ].

Leptodius exaratus View in CoL — Balss 1922b: 127; Shen 1940a: 224; BKK Chan et al. 2005: 1, fig. 2 [not C. exaratus H. Milne Edwards, 1834 View in CoL ].

Xantho exaratus View in CoL — Gordon 1931: 528, 544, text-figs. 20, 22B [not C. exaratus H. Milne Edwards, 1834 View in CoL ].

Leptodius affinis View in CoL — S-k Lee et al. 2013: 192 View Cited Treatment , figs. 3, 4E –I; Bravo et al. 2021: tab. 2.

Taxonomy: Sakai (1939: as Xantho (Leptodius) exaratus View in CoL ), S-k Lee et al. (2013).

Type: Lectotype ñ RMNH D 44644 and paralectotypes in RMNH (designated by Yamaguchi and Baba 1993; see also Fransen et al. 1997; S-k Lee et al. 2013).

Type locality: Japan, locality unspecified.

Distribution: Eastern Indian Ocean to Central Pacific: Laccadive Sea, Phuket ( Thailand), Southeast and East Asia to Japan, to Indonesia and Australia, New Caledonia, Palau, Mariana, Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert Islands, and Fiji, Samoa, to Tuamotu (S-k Lee et al. 2013).

Habitat: Intertidal and shallow subtidal; along rocky or pebbly shore, under stones and crevices of rocks, or in coral reefs.

Remarks: Leptodius exaratus (H. Milne Edwards, 1834) sensu stricto has been verified to be found only in the western Indian Ocean, Persian/Arabian Gulf and Red Sea, and records eastwards under this name belong to L. affinis instead (S-k Lee et al. 2013). After the publication of preliminary results on collections from the NPEE (1858a) as “ Chlorodius exaratus ”, Stimpson (1907) presented detailed diagnosis of nine varieties (a to i), among which two, namely h, latus and i, granulosus , were recorded from Hong Kong. According to S.-k. Lee et al. (2013), these represented, respectively, now L. sanguineus (H. Milne Edwards, 1834) L. philippinensis Ward, 1941 , or Macromedaeus distinguendus (De Haan, 1835) . These two records are listed as separated entries below.