New Record of a Leucosid Crab Arcania cornuta from West Coast of India along with Notes on its Morphometric Measurements

During the course of faunal resource survey in 2002, the author came across four specimens (2 males and 2 females) of the crab species Arcania cornuta (Brachyura: Leucosiidae) (Fig. 1) in Kerala backwater systems. All the four specimens were collected from Neendakara in the Kollam district of Kerala. The species was described from the Persian Gulf by MacGilchrist in 1905 as Ixoides cornutus. Quite recently, Galil (2001) in her revisionary work on the genus Arcania synonymised the genus Ixoides under Arcania . A perusal of literature reveals the record of this species from Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Chennai (Tamil Nadu) of the east coast of India only (Devi et al ., 1888; Dev Roy and Bhadra, 2005; Krishnamoorthy, 2007). The present record of this species thus extends its distribution to west coast of India.