Paralbunea, SERENE, 1977

BOYKO, CHRISTOPHER B., 2002, A Worldwide Revision Of The Recent And Fossil Sand Crabs Of The Albuneidae Stimpson And Blepharipodidae, New Family (Crustacea: Decapoda: Anomura: Hippoidea), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2002 (272), pp. 1-396 : 180-181

PARALBUNEA SERÈNE, 1977

Albunea: Balss, 1916a: 37 (part). – Gordon, 1938: 186–187, 190–193 (part). – Serène and Umali, 1965: 89 (part). – Coêlho and Calado, 1987: 41 (part). – Sun and Wang, 1996: 31 (part) (not Albunea Weber, 1795 ).

Paralbunea Serène, 1977: 54 . – Serène, 1979: 97– 98 (part). – Coêlho and Calado, 1987: 42 (part). – Calado, 1995: 239–240 (part). – Boyko and Harvey, 1999: 380, 402 (key) (part).

Albune [sic]: Coêlho and Calado, 1987: 42 (part) (not Albunea Weber, 1795 ).

not Paralbunea Serène, 1979: 97–98 (part). – Calado, 1995: 239–240 (part). – Boyko and Harvey, 1999: 380, 402 (key) (part) (= Squillalbunea , n. gen.).

not Paralbunea Hu and Tao, 1996: 62 (junior homonym; see below).

DIAGNOSIS: Carapace wider than long, front broad, anterior margin weakly spinose or unarmed; hepatic anterolateral spine absent; branchiostegite armed. Distal peduncular segments flattened, short, without corneas. Antennular segment I unarmed; dorsal flagellum with 70–145 articles, ventral flagellum with two or three articles. Antennal segment I unarmed; flagellum with six to eight articles. Maxilliped III exopod slender. Pereopod I dactylus dorsal margin smooth; distodorsal carpal spine absent; cutting edge smooth. Males without coxal pore on pereopod III. Telson of male fully calcified. Telsons with weak sexual dimorphism.

DISTRIBUTION: Central west coast of Africa and throughout the Indo­Pacific Ocean from east Africa to Tahiti.

TYPE SPECIES: Paralbunea Serène : Paralbunea manihinei Serène, 1977 , by monotypy; Paralbunea Hu and Tao : Paralbunea taipeiensis Hu and Tao, 1996 , by monotypy.

INCLUDED SPECIES: P. intermedia (Balss, 1916) ; P. paradoxa ( Gordon, 1938) ; P. dayriti (Serène and Umali, 1965) ; P. manihinei Serène, 1977 .

REMARKS: The genus Paralbunea has been credited to Serène (1979), with the type species given as Albunea paradoxa Gordon, 1938 . However, Serène (1977) earlier cited the ‘‘nouveau genre‘‘ Paralbunea and gave morphological characters to distinguish it from Albunea , therby making the name available from the 1977 publication. The type species is therefore, by monotypy, the only one included in Paralbunea in the 1977 work: Paralbunea manihinei Serène. Fortunately , the concept of the genus is not altered by this change in type species, as both paradoxa and manihinei are good species of Paralbunea . The species Albunea mariellae Serène was questionably placed in this genus by Serène (1979) but it does not belong here. With the removal herein of A. mariellae to a new genus, all of the other taxa placed in Paralbunea form a monophyletic group that is the most plesiomorphic within the Albuneinae .

Hu and Tao (1996) described a new fossil genus of purported albuneid crab from the Miocene of Taiwan. They named this genus Paralbunea , with the type species P. taipeiensis Hu and Tao, 1996 as its only component. Unfortunately, Paralbunea Hu and Tao is preoccupied by the Recent genus Paralbunea Serène. Normally in such circumstances, it would be necessary to erect a replacement name for the preoccupied genus, but in this situation it is not required. This is because the type species of Paralbunea Hu and Tao is a composite of two, perhaps even three, different species of decapods, none of which is an albuneid (Boyko, in prep.). The genus will be synonymized elsewhere (Boyko, in prep.). Ng (1999) has pointed out that the publication of Hu and Tao (1996) ‘‘will cause substantial problems for many taxonomists’’ and that most of the species described by Hu and Tao (1996) ‘‘can probably be referred to current genera and species’’.