Diogenes avarus Heller, 1865

Diogenes avarus Heller, 1865 View in CoL

( Fig. 8A View Figure 8 )

Habitat. Sandy, muddy and gravel shore, reef flat, intertidal.

Distribution. From East Africa and the Red Sea across the Indian Ocean to Thailand, the Malay Archipelago, Vietnam, the Philippines, and northern Australia. Indonesia: Lombok, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Papua.

Remarks. This is a very common species on sandy muddy shores. Forest (1956), McLaughlin and Clark (1997), Rahayu and Forest (1995), Rahayu and Komai (2000), Rahayu and Hortle (2002), Siddiqui et al. (2004) have discussed the variability of the following morphological characters: proportion of ocular peduncles against corneas and shield; presence or absence of spine on fourth segment of antennal peduncles; shape of left cheliped; presence or absence of row of spines on dorsal margin of propodus and carpus of second and third pereopods.The color in life of the specimens in this study is different than those described by Morgan (1987a) for the specimens from Australia, and Haig and Ball (1988) for the specimens from Banda, Maluku. In the present specimens the color is as follows: ocular peduncles blue with oblique dark brown band proximally, left cheliped dark brown with dactyl and fixed finger light brown, ambulatory legs dactyl and merus light brown with dark brown or black band proximally, while the propodus and carpus brownish blue distally, dark brown or black proximally ( Fig. 8A View Figure 8 ). The color of the specimens from Australia is as follows: ocular peduncles cream sometimes with blue-green fleck proximally, cheliped cream with variable area of brown especially on propodus ventrally, ambulatory legs cream, propodus brown near mid-length, and scattered brown areas on carpus and merus. Whereas the specimen from Banda has ocular peduncles uniform light brown, or brown with broad, oblique white band medially, carpus and merus of large cheliped solid light brown, chela white; dactylus of ambulatory legs dark brown proximally and white distally; propodus white medially, dark brown proximally and light brown distally; carpus light brown with white band distally; merus with two brown bands.

Considering the variability of morphological and color characters mentioned above, it is possible that more than one species has been identified as D.avarus in different areas of the Indo-West Pacific. It is beyond the scope of this study to resolve the validity of D. avarus across its distribution.