A TAXONOMIC APPRAISAL OF Lobothelphusa woodmasoni (Rathbun, 1905) (Decapoda, Brachyura: Potamidae: Potaminae) FROM NORTHEASTERN INDIA
AWARLIN CHETIA
Department of Zoology, Rajiv Gandhi University, Rono Hills, Doimukh-791112, Arunachal Pradesh, India.
SANTANU MITRA
Crustacea Division, Zoological Survey of India, Fire Proof Spirit Building, 27 Jawaharlal Nehru Road, Kolkata-700016, West Bengal, India.
DEBANGSHU NARAYAN DAS *
Department of Zoology, Rajiv Gandhi University, Rono Hills, Doimukh-791112, Arunachal Pradesh, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Lobothelphusa woodmasoni (Rathbun, 1905) is a freshwater crab, restricted mainly to the Southeast Asian countries. Currently, there are two completely contradictory descriptions of the male gonopod and both the authors hardly gave any evidence whether ‘type specimen’ housed at Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata was compared or not. This creates perplexity on the taxonomic identity of the species whereas comparison of gonopods with published data as well as voucher specimen is the only way to identify an adult male specimen. Therefore, to provide some clarity, this paper reviews the taxonomical status of L. woodmasoni from Northeast India by comparing the samples from two sites of occurrences (i.e. Sivasagar and Harmuti, Assam) with its ‘type specimen’. The finding offers the detailed anatomical features of the female abdomen and gonopores for the first time that may be used as tool for species discrimination and thereby re-evaluates the structure of male gonopods and other accessory characters for proper taxonomic enumeration of the species.
Keywords: Gonopod, re-evaluation, type specimen, freshwater crab, species discrimination.