Post-larval morphology, growth, and development ofUca cumulantaCrane, 1943 (Crustacea, Decapoda, Ocypodidae) under laboratory conditions

Description of the first juvenile stage of the fiddler crab Minuca mordax (Smith, 1870) (Crustacea, Decapoda, Ocypodidae)

“…The brushlike appearance and arrangement of the numerous setae on the maxillule and maxilla of M. mordax juveniles are similar to L. cumulanta described by Hirose et al (2010). This arrangement of setae may be related to detritivorous feeding habit of these species, with these setae used in the segregation of food particles from the sediment (Crane, 1975).…”

“…Indeed, the characters that distinguished the first crab stage of M. mordax from those of M. burgersi and L. cumulanta were of that nature: exopod of antennule 2-segmented; endopod of maxillule unsegmented; endopod of the first and second maxilliped 4-segmented (Table 1). In contrast M. burgersi has a 3-segmented antennule exopod, 2-segmented maxillule endopod, unsegmented first maxilliped endopod and 5-segmented second maxilliped endopod, while L. cumulanta has an unsegmented antennule exopod, 2-segmented maxillule endopod, unsegmented first maxilliped endopod, and 5-segmented second maxilliped endopod (Hirose et al, 2010;Vieira et al, 2010) (see Table 1 for a detailed comparison of all appendages).…”

“…Minuca mordax has the lowest total number of setae on these structures or appendages (≅ 505 setae), followed by M. burgersi (≅ 523) (Vieira et al, 2010) and L. cumulanta (≅ 616) (Hirose et al, 2010) (Table 1).…”

“…Due to the limited knowledge of the first juvenile stage of fiddler crab, a morphological comparison until known was limited to Minuca burgersi and Leptuca cumulanta described by Hirose et al (2010) and Vieira et al (2010), respectively.…”

“…The first juvenile stage has only been morphologically described in detail for Minuca burgersi Holthuis (1967) and Leptuca cumulanta Crane (1943) (Hirose et al, 2010;Vieira et al, 2010).…”