Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Pinnotheres bicristatus García Raso & Cuesta is a species of a pea crab belonging to the genus Pinnotheres Bosc, 1801.The genus contains around 30 valid species of pea crabs according to WoRMS, of which 3 are recorded in European waters.Only two species were so far confirmed for the Mediterranean Sea, P. pisum and P. bicristatus, the first being a well know and wide-spread species and the second newly described (Becker& Türkay, 2010;Cuesta et al., 2019).Pinnotheres bicristatus García Raso & Cuesta was described as new species in 2019 by Cuesta et al..The first known record comes from 1994 form offshore the Barbate coast, with additional findings appearing in following years in catches of various research cruises and surveys from the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Andalusia (South of Iberian Peninsula).The species was collected in larvalstages and in adult form.The adults were found to mainly occur in the common saddle oyster, Anomia ephippium, but few were found also in the flat oyster, Ostrea edulis, which were collected between 11 and 71 m depth (Cuesta et al., 2019;Marco-Herrero et al., 2020).On 5. September 2021 a specimen of Pinnotheres bicristatus García Raso & Cuesta was photographed at approximately 9 m depth by recreative scuba diver at Fiesa (Piran, Slovenia) (45°31'33.70"N, 13°34'49.97"E).The specimen was determined based on the distinct external morphological features seen from the photographs and described by Cuesta et al. (2019), namely the colour pattern on the carapax and tufts of short, curved setae positioned on dorsoanterolateral carapace region (Figure 1).The crab was found on a sandy bottom, on top of a hollowed concrete cube, overgrown with several algal species.The finding represents the first finding in the Mediterranean Sea, out of the Alboran Sea, suggesting that the crab could be more widespread in the Mediterranean as is known until now.
Authors: Mavrič, Borut, Vrezec, Al
Institution: National Institute of Biology
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7009947200
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