Relevant Synonyms - Misidentification Neptunus pelagicus (Linnaeus, 1758) (cf. Giordani Soika, 1951)  photo : Bella Galil

SHORT DESCRIPTION Carapace broad, dorsal surface granulate. Front with two prominent triangular teeth. Antero-lateral margin with nine teeth, hindmost tooth longest, directed outward, acute. Chelipeds stout, longer than walking legs; merus with three stout spines on inner margin, and one subdistal-external spine; carpus lacking internal spine; upper surface of palm with granulate carinae ending in spines. Walking legs compressed, fifth walking leg with distal segments paddle-like. Male abdomen with segments 3-5 fused, narrow inverted T. In males first pleopods extend to fourth thoracic sternite. color : carapace mottled greyish or bluish green, spines orange red. Fingers of chelipeds blue in male, red in female. Walking legs blue and white. common size : males CL 9 cm (max.), width 20 cm (max.); females CL 7.5 cm (max). DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS Front with two prominent triangular teeth, tips of male 1st pleopods not bent. BIOLOGY / ECOLOGY Hatching in estuaries and coastal regions, larval development takes place at sea. Megalopae migrate back into upper estuaries and there spend their life. Euryhaline, tolerant of extreme salinities; eurythermal; omnivore. Occurrence of the black-spot disease was recently recorded in the Eastern Mediterranean populations (Enzenross et al., 1997). habitat : estuaries and shallow coastal waters, intertidal to 90 m.

1st MEDITERRANEAN RECORD Venice, Italy 1951 [1949]. DISTRIBUTION Worldwide : Western Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to Uruguay; recorded off the Atlantic coasts of Europe as early as 1900, from the Baltic Sea to Netherlands and France. First recorded in the Black Sea in 1967 and in Japan in 1974. Mediterranean : recorded first as Neptunus pelagicus from Venice, Italy (Giordani Soika, 1951 [1949]). Successively recorded from Israel (Holthuis and Gottlieb, 1955); Greece, northern Aegean (Serbetis, 1959); southern Turkey (Holthuis, 1961); Etang de Berre, France (Zibrowius, pers. comm., 1962); Egypt (Banoub, 1963); Lebanon (George and Athanassiou, 1965); Italy, Ligurian Sea (Tortonese, 1965), Central Adriatic Sea (Froglia, 1972); Malta (Schembri and Lanfranco, 1984); Cyprus (Lewinsohn and Holthuis, 1986); Italy, Ionian Sea (Argano, pers. comm., 1999). Collected in Lattakia, Syria (Saker and Farah, 1994). Several specimens were collected in Ugento ponds area, Ionian Sea, Italy (Gennaio et al., 2006 [2004]). Ston Lagoon and Neretva River estuary, Croatia (Onofri et al., 2008 [2004]). ESTABLISHMENT SUCCESS Common, though declining in Greece, due perhaps to overfishing. speculated reasons for success : eurythermal and euryhaline, high fecundity, aggressive, good swimmer. MODE OF INTRODUCTION Transported in ballast from the western Atlantic to the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean ports. IMPORTANCE TO HUMANS Reported to mutilate fish caught in traps and trammel nets and to tear nets. Supports an important fishery along the Atlantic coast of USA.

KEY REFERENCES Banoub M.W., 1963. Survey of the Blue Crab Callinectes sapidus (Rath.) in lake Edku in 1960. Hydrobiology Department, Alexandria Institute of Hydrobiology, Notes and Memoirs, 69: 1-18. Bulgurkov K.I., 1968. Callinectes sapidus Rathbun in the Black Sea. Izvest. NIORS, 9: 97-99. Gennaio R., G. Scordella and M. Pastore, 2006. Occurrence of blue crab Callinectes sapidus (Rathbun, 1896) Crustacea, Brachyura), in the Ugento ponds area (Lecce, Italy ). Thalassia salentina, 29: 29-39. Giordani Soika A., 1951. Il Neptunus pelagicus (L.) nell' alto Adriatico. Natura, Milano, 42: 18-20.   Holthuis L.B., 1961. Report on a collection of Crustacea Decapoda and Stomatopoda from Turkey and the Balkans. Zoologische Verhandelingen, Leiden, 47: 1-67. FEEDBACK / COMMENTS TO AUTHORS

Last update of the species sheet: October 2008 ©ciesm 2002