Relevant Synonyms Neptunus (Portunus) pelagicus Fox, 1924 Neptunus pelagicus Fox, 1926 Misidentification Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896 (cf. Ghisotti, 1966; Torchio, 1967; Cavaliere and Berdar, 1977)  photo: Bella Galil

SHORT DESCRIPTION Carapace broad, somewhat convex, granulate; larger granules ranged in transverse lines on gastric, branchial regions, clustered on cardiac, post-gastric regions. Front with four acute lobes. Antero-external angle of basal antennal segment produced. Inner supra-orbital angle prominent, inner angle dentiform, prominent. Antero-lateral margin oblique, arched, bearing nine triangular teeth, last tooth largest, projecting laterally; postero-lateral margin oblique. Chelipeds long, massive, spinous and ridged. Anterior margin of merus quadrispinose. Carpus with prominent spine on internal margin. Upper surface of palm tricarinate; middle, inner carinae terminating in spines. Carpus, merus of fifth leg broad, propodus, dactylus foliaceous. Male abdomen triangular. color : carapace greenish-brown with irregular pale mottling edged in dark brown. Chelipeds purplish, mottled, fingers blue. Legs proximally mottled, distally blue. common size : males CL 7 cm, females CL 6.5 cm. DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS Basal antennal segment narrow, antennal flagellum not excluded from orbit; front quadridentate. Easily distinguished from Callinectes by the prominent inner spine on cheliped carpus, triangular abdomen in males. BIOLOGY / ECOLOGY Feeds on benthic organisms. Berried females May-August. habitat : sandy or muddy substrate, intertidal to 55 m.

1st MEDITERRANEAN RECORD Egypt, 1924 [1898]. DISTRIBUTION Worldwide : Indo-Pacific, Red Sea to Tahiti. Mediterranean : recorded first as Neptunus (Portunus) pelagicus from Egypt (Fox, 1924 [1898]). Successively recorded from Palestine (Fox, 1924); southern Turkey (Gruvel, 1928); Lebanon (Steinitz, 1929); Syria (Gruvel, 1930); Cyprus (Demetropoulos and Neocleous, 1969); Italy, eastern Sicily (Ghisotti, 1966). One specimen was collected off the harbour of Livorno, Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy, in spring 2004 (Crocetta, 2006); Greece, Rhodes (Corsini-Foka et al., 2003 [1991]); Turkey, Datca Peninsula, Gokova, Bodrum (Yokes et al., 2007). ESTABLISHMENT SUCCESS Abundant along the Levant since the 1920's. speculated reasons for success : - MODE OF INTRODUCTION Via the Suez Canal (Krukenberg, 1888). IMPORTANCE TO HUMANS Commercially valuable since the early 1920s in the Levant basin. Fished in Sicily from the late 1960s to the 1980s, presently rare.

KEY REFERENCES Crocetta F., 2006. First record of Portunus pelagicus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Decapoda, Brachyura, Portunidae) in the northern Tyrrhenian Sea. Crustaceana, 79(9): 1145-1148. Crosnier A., 1962. Crustacés décapodes Portunidae. Faune de Madagascar 16: 1-154. Fox H.M., 1924. The migration of a Red Sea crab through the Suez Canal. Nature, London, 113: 714-715. Holthuis L.B., 1961. Report on a collection of Crustacea Decapoda and Stomatopoda from Turkey and the Balkans. Zoologische Verhandelingen, Leiden, 47: 1-67.   Stephenson W., 1972. An annotated check list and key to the Indo-West-Pacific swimming crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda: Portunidae). Bulletin of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 10: 1-64. FEEDBACK / COMMENTS TO AUTHORS

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