Blepharipoda liberata Shen, 1949

Boyko, Christopher B., 2020, Fig. 4 in Striatoandricus sanchezi Cuesta-Porta & Melika & Nicholls & Stone & Pujade-Villar 2022, n. sp., Zoological Studies 59 (15), pp. 1-16 : 2

Blepharipoda liberata Shen, 1949

Blepharipoda liberata – Wang and Yang 1994: 573 [list]; Muraoka 1998: 56 [list]; Wang and Yang 2001: 351 [list]; Boyko 2002: 2, 8, 26, 27, 35–42, figs. 2D (part), 12, 13 [full synonymy]; Petryashev 2005: S11 [list]; Osawa and Fujita 2007: 127 [mention]; Boyko and McLaughlin 2010: 142 [list]; Park et al. 2011: 236 [list]; An et al. 2014: 534, 534 [ Korea]; Sohtome et al. 2014: 109 [list]; Yoon et al. 2014: 938, 941 [ Korea]; Mao and Li 2015: 118 [ China].

Blepharipoda liberate [sic] – Yoon et al. 2014: 935 [ Korea]; Wang 2015: 74–78, figs. 1–2 [ China]; Ding et al. 2016: 1208–1214, fig. 2 (part) [ Korea; genetic data]; Hou et al. 2017: 262–269, fig. 1 [ China; nutrient composition]; Zhou et al. 2019: 169–174, figs. 1–3 [ China].

Material examined: 1 male (23.3 mm CL × 18.2 mm CW), Qingdao, China, coll. fishermen ( ZRC 2016.0113).

Range: Known from Japan, China, and Korea; depth range unknown ( Boyko 2002).

Remarks: This specimen of B. liberata is tied for the male with the largest known carapace length ( Boyko 2002). Mao and Li (2015) incorrectly cited this species as belonging to Albuneidae , the family it was formerly placed in prior to 2002 ( Boyko 2002). Blepharipoda liberata is apparently “a commercially valuable seafood product that is highly popular in Shandong Province ” ( Hou et al. 2017), although no specifics as to the number of specimens caught per season or year were provided. Zhou et al. (2019) determined the karyotype of this species, but gave an unusual context for doing so: they stated that “the question of whether B. liberate [sic] is a shrimp or a crab has been debated in recent years” when no author has ever suggested than B. liberata is anything but an anomuran. One further note, the erroneous spelling “ Blepharipoda liberate ” [sic] has appeared with increasing frequency in recent years, no doubt due to Microsoft Word consistently autocorrecting “ liberata ” to “ liberate ” and a lack of subsequent proofreading.