Menippe rumphii (Fabricius, 1798)

Naderloo, Reza & Türkay, Michael, 2012, Decapod crustaceans of the littoral and shallow sublittoral Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf: Faunistics, Biodiversity and Zoogeography 3374, Zootaxa 3374 (1), pp. 1-67 : 30

Menippe rumphii (Fabricius, 1798)

Persian Gulf. First Persian Gulf record.

Iran. Hormozgan Province: Qeshm I. (Zeytun Park Beach).

General distribution. Indian Ocean: East Africa, Madagascar, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Socotra, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Pakistan, India ( Bombay), Laccadive, South India, Sri Lanka, Mergui Archipelago, Nicobar Is., Andaman Sea, Thailand, Indonesia.

Habitat. Rocky/cobble intertidal.

Remarks. Apel (2001) did not list the species among the known brachyuran crabs of the Persian Gulf. Alcock’s (1898) record was based on the “ Investigator ” sampling, which is thought being outside of the Persian Gulf. Since other records of M. rumphii from the Gulf ( Stephensen 1946; Guinot 1967; Titgen 1982) are based on Alcock’s (1898) record, they are not reliable. However, the present record confirms the occurrence of the species in the Persian Gulf. Furthermore, a single male was collected from Djod Village of Baluchestan, which is the first record for the Gulf of Oman.