A new species of sand crab Jonas Hombron &amp; Jacquinot, 1846 (Crustacea: <br />Decapoda: Brachyura: Corystidae) from the southeastern coast of India

Abstract

A new species of sand crab of the genus Jonas Hombron & Jacquinot, 1846 (family Corystidae) is described from specimens collected from Kalpakkam, southeastern coast of India. Two other species, J. indicus (Chopra, 1935), and J. choprai Serène, 1971, have previously been recorded from this area. A detailed description of the new species is given and compared with the closely related J. formosae Balss, 1922, also from the Indo-West Pacific.

First record of sand crab, Jonas kalpakkamensis Barathkumar, Das & Satpathy, 2016 (Decapoda, Brachyura, Corystidae) from the Western Indian Ocean with a key to the genus Jonas

“…Jonas kalpakkamensis was documented only from Tamil Nadu coast along the Bay of Bengal region further there is no record of this species from any other coast. In the present study, the sand crab, J. kalpakkamensis Barathkumar, Das & Satpathy, 2016 is reported for the first time from the Gujarat coast along the Western Indian Ocean. Further, detailed taxonomical notes of the species and identification key for Jonas spp.…”

“…The specimens of J. kalpakkamensis were caught by trawl net operated along the Gujarat coast, Arabian Sea at a depth range between 15 and 50 m. The collected sand crab specimens were identified following Barathkumar et al . (2016) and morphometric measurements (Table 1) were made using the Vernier caliper (VC) with an accuracy of 0.1 mm. Photographs of the crabs were captured using the Nikon D-5300 camera and further, the crabs were preserved using 10% formalin and deposited in the Museum of College of Fisheries Science, Veraval.…”

“…Photographs of the crabs were captured using the Nikon D-5300 camera and further, the crabs were preserved using 10% formalin and deposited in the Museum of College of Fisheries Science, Veraval. In the present study, body parts of the sand crab were made using the pencil sketch manner by referring the standard literature and software (Barathkumar et al ., 2016; Sureandiran et al ., 2023b).

Figure 1.Map of the study area Veraval fishing harbour, Gujarat, Western Indian Ocean (note: red marking indicates the present study area and blue marking indicates the previous report).

…”

“…Globally, the corystid group consists of 11 genera among those the genus Jonas commonly called as the sand crab comprises of 7 valid species (DecaNet, 2024). In India three species namely J. choprai , J. indicus, and J. kalpakkamensis were reported from coastal waters of Tamil Nadu and West Bengal (Chopra, 1935; Deb, 1999; Manokaran et al ., 2008; Pillai and Thirumilu, 2008; Barathkumar et al ., 2016).…”

“…Abstract A total of five specimens of sand crab, Jonas kalpakkamensis Barathkumar, Das & Satpathy, 2016 were recorded for the first time from the Western Indian Ocean. The sand crab specimens were collected from the bycatch of the commercial demersal trawler targeting crustaceans at a depth of 15–50 m operated along the western region of the Gujarat coastal waters.…”