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Type: Article
Published: 2024-07-04
Page range: 474-504
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A new species of coral-dwelling crab (Decapoda: Brachyura: Cryptochiridae: Opecarcinus) from the West Pacific

Biodiversity Research Center; Academia Sinica; Taipei 115; Taiwan; Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; National Taiwan University; Taipei 106; Taiwan
Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences; University of Groningen; Nijenborgh 7; 9747 AG Groningen; The Netherlands; Marine Biodiversity Group; Naturalis Biodiversity Center; Darwinweg 2; 2333 CR Leiden; The Netherlands
Biodiversity Research Center; Academia Sinica; Taipei 115; Taiwan
Crustacea coral-associated invertebrates DNA barcoding taxonomy Green Island Taiwan

Abstract

Based on material acquired from Green Island, Taiwan, using a combined approach of traditional morphology-based taxonomy and molecular barcoding, we describe a new species of coral-dwelling crab, Opecarcinus ngankeeae sp. nov., from the scleractinian hosts Pavona decussata and P. varians (family Agariciidae). The DNA sequences of the present species matched with O. sp. SET6, associated with plate-forming Leptoseris and Pavona corals, available on Genbank, provided by Xu et al. (2022). The geographical distribution of O. ngankeeae sp. nov. spans from the Coral Triangle and Taiwan to Japan in West Pacific.

 

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