Description ofGhatiana, a new genus of freshwater crab, with two new species and a new species ofGubernatoriana(Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura: Gecarcinucidae) from the Western Ghat Mountains, India

Abstract

A new genus of freshwater crab, Ghatiana, with two new species, Ghatiana aurantiaca and Ghatiana hyacintha, and a new species of Gubernatoriana Bott, 1970, are described from the Western Ghat Mountains in Maharashtra State, India. Ghatiana is most similar to Gubernatoriana by its wide, highly arched carapace and by the shape of the male abdomen. Nevertheless, the new genus can be distinguished from Gubernatoriana by the broadness of carapace, length of male abdomen, shape of sixth abdominal somite, length of telson and length of G1 terminal article. Ghatiana aurantiaca sp. nov. and G. hyacintha sp. nov. are distinguished by differences in body colour, carapace width, and G1 morphology, whereas Gubernatoriana triangulus sp. nov. is distinguished from two other known species [Gubernatoriana gubernatoris (Alcock, 1909) and Gubernatoriana pilosipes (Alcock, 1909)] by its triangular G1 subterminal segment and by its carapace morphology. Keys to the species of both the genera are provided. http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:36BAA1EA-DC15-4B06-BA09-7BD26C63FF54

Phylogeny of the freshwater crabs of the Western Ghats (Brachyura, Gecarcinucidae)

“…In addition to its three congeners within Gubernatoriana ( G. gubernatoris (Alcock ) , G. pilosipes (Alcock ) and G. triangularis, Pati & Sharma ), the new species is also morphologically close to two other genera: Ghatiana (with two species G. aurantica Pati & Sharma ; and G. hyazintha Pati & Sharma ); and Inglethelphusa (monotypic, with I. fronto (Alcock )). These species all share the following characters: faint postorbital cristae and epibranchial teeth; a wide frontal margin; absence of a well‐developed flagellum on the exopod of the third maxilliped; pronounced heterochely; and T‐shaped male abdomen.…”

“…The origins of the genetic samples used for phylogenetic inference are marked with an asterisk in case of more than one sampling location. Based on Bott (), Bahir & Yeo () and Pati & Sharma ().…”

“…), and the rather sparse literature on south Indian freshwater crabs (Alcock ; Bott ; Bahir & Yeo ). In particular, the freshwater crab fauna of the northern part of the Western Ghats, that is, the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra, are poorly investigated (Pati & Sharma ), such that even the very conspicuous‐looking crab, Gubernatoriana basalticola sp. n. has hitherto escaped discovery and scientific description.…”

“…The final data set comprises 90% of genera and 36% of species of the known gecarcinucid freshwater crabs of the Indian subcontinent (excluding Sri Lanka). Only three genera are not represented in our data set: the monotypic genus Inglethelphusa that is found at Mahableshwar, Maharashtra, and proposed to be closely related to the genus Cylindrotelphusa (see Bott ), the recently described genus Ghatiana from the northern Western Ghats (Pati & Sharma ) and the genus Globitelphusa that occurs in northern India. The latter was synonymised by Bott () with the genus Liotelphusa of the subfamily Liotelphusinae, but regarded as a valid genus by Ng et al .…”

The conservation status of decapod crustaceans in the Western Ghats of India: an exceptional region of freshwater biodiversity

“…A list of freshwater decapods found in the Western Ghats region was compiled based on recent checklists of Indian atyid and palaemonid shrimps (Valarmathi, ; Radhakrishnan et al ., ), and gecarcinucid crabs (Bahir and Yeo, ; Pati et al ., ) as well as several recent species description papers (Jayachandran and Thomas, ; Jayachandran et al ., ; Pillai and Unnikrishnan, , , , ; Pati and Sharma, , ; Pillai et al ., ).…”