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Record of a Xanthid Crab Euxanthus exsculptus (Herbst, 1790) (Decapoda, Brachyura, Xanthidae) Recovered from the Gut of Humpback Red Snapper, Lutjanus gibbus from the Southwest Coast of India

Authors:
Radhika Balachandran
Radhika Balachandran
Radhika Balachandran
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Livi Wilson at Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute
Livi Wilson
P U Zacharia at ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute
P U Zacharia
  • ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute
Rajeev Raghavan at Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean studies
Rajeev Raghavan
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This study reports the occurrence of xanthid crabs obtained from the gut of a commercially important species, humpback red snapper, Lutjanus gibbus sampled from coastal waters off Cochin, India. The recovered xanthid crabs were identified up to species level using standard literature and found out to be male specimens of Euxanthus exsculptus (Herbst 1790). The crabs had smooth and swollen bumps on the wide sub-hexagonal carapace, 12.90 mm length and in 19.02 mm width. This is the first report of the occurrence of E. exsculptus from the gut of Lutjanus gibbus caught off Kochi coast, India. Details of the diagnostic characteristics of this crab species are presented in this paper.
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Record of a Xanthid Crab Euxanthus exsculptus (Herbst, 1790)
(Decapoda, Brachyura, Xanthidae) Recovered from the Gut
of Humpback Red Snapper, Lutjanus gibbus from the Southwest
Coast of India
Radhika Balachandran
1,2
&Livi Wilson
1
&P. U. Zacharia
1
&Rajeev Raghavan
2
&G. B. Purushottama
3
&K. T. S. Sunil
1
Received: 2 September 2020 /Revised: 21 January 2021 /Accepted: 1 March 2021
#The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Abstract
This study reports the occurrence of xanthid crabs obtained from the gut of a commercially important species, humpback red
snapper, Lutjanus gibbus sampled from coastal waters off Cochin, India. The recovered xanthid crabs were identified up to
species level using standard literature and found out to be male specimens of Euxanthus exsculptus (Herbst 1790). The crabs had
smooth and swollen bumps on the wide sub-hexagonal carapace, 12.90 mm length and in 19.02 mm width. This is the first report
of the occurrence of E. exsculptus from the gut of Lutjanus gibbus caught off Kochi coast, India. Details of the diagnostic
characteristics of this crab species are presented in this paper.
Keywords Xanthid crabs .Morphological characteristics .Reef-associated fish .Gut content
Introduction
Snappers belonging to the family Lutjanidae, are reef-
inhabiting marine tropical fishes known to prey on benthic
invertebrates like crabs and/or fishes (Parrish 1987;
Kamukuru and Mgaya 2004). Snappers have an ontogenetic
diet shift related to habitat reallocation, which enables them to
take advantage of reef-associated prey instead of open water
prey (Szedlmayer and Lee 2004). The diet of Lutjanus species
caught from mangrove habitat is dominated by estuarine crabs
and shrimps, whereas those collected from reef areas are dom-
inated by reef-associated crabs (Nakamura et al. 2008). The
deep body, convex head shape as well as short conical teeth
with jaw mechanics enable species like Lutjanus gibbus to
produce large bite force (Nanami and Shimose 2012)and
higher flexibility to swim into coral rubbles at a slow-pace
(Webb 1978,1984; Helfman et al. 1997), facilitating the cap-
ture of benthic invertebrates such as crabs and shrimps asso-
ciated with hard substrates. Mithrax sculptus,Euphylax
robustus,Pachygrapsus transversus,Percon gibbesi,
Goniopsis pulchra,Grapsus grapsus,Callinectes arcuatus
and Lophoxanthus lamellipes were some of the brachyuran
crabs collected from the gut of snappers (Rooker 1995;
Arturo and Francisco 2009; Aguilar-Betancourt et al. 2017).
Nair et al. (2013) reported the occurrence of a xanthid crab
Lophozozymus incisus from the gut of Lutjanus gibbus caught
off Cochin.
Euxanthus exsculptus is a slow-moving crab seen among
coral rubble and resides under stones on rocky shores (Ghani
and Tirmizi 1992). Documented distribution of E. exsculptus
is from Indo-Pacific, Japan, Philippines, Samoa, New
Caledonia, Australia, Fiji, Gaspar, Karachi waters (Northern
Arabian Sea), Sri Lanka and Mauritius (Ghani and Tirmizi
1992). E. rugosus, a very similar species with E. exsculptus,
distribution range is restricted to South-Western Indian Ocean
(Guinot 1964). The another similar xanthid crab, Euxanthus
boletarius recorded from Seychelles, Amiranthes, Chagos,
Madagascar from Western Indian Ocean (Serene 1984), an
extended range of occurrence towards Red Sea was reported
by Neumann and Spiridonov (1999). The range of distribution
of Euxanthus huonii includes Indo-West Pacific region, Red
*Livi Wilson
liviwilson@gmail.com
1
Demersal Fisheries Division, ICAR- Central Marine Fisheries
Research Institute, Kochi, Kerala 682018, India
2
Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, Panangad,
Kochi, Kerala 682506, India
3
Mangalore Regional Centre of CMFRI, Hoige Bazar,
Mangaluru, Karnataka 575 001, India
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41208-021-00295-3
/ Published online: 9 March 2021
Thalassas: An International Journal of Marine Sciences (2022) 38:411–415
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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