NOTES AND NEWS

MAJA GOLTZIANA D’OLIVEIRA, 1888 (DECAPODA, BRACHYURA, MAJIDAE) IN THE SOUTHERN

BY

OTTAVIO SOPPELSA1,3), FABIO CROCETTA1) and CARLO PIPITONE2) 1) Department of Zoology, University of Naples Federico II, Via Mezzocannone, 8, I-80134 Naples, Italy 2) C.N.R. – I.A.M.C., Laboratorio di Ecologia della Fascia Costiera, Via Giovanni da Verrazzano, 17, I-91014 (TP), Italy

INTRODUCTION Maja goltziana d’Oliveira, 1888 is an oxyrhynch crab occurring in the eastern Atlantic Ocean from Portugal to Congo and the Canary Islands, and in the (d’Udekem d’Acoz, 1999). It is apparently uncommon all across its distributional range, although González Pérez (1995) describes it as a frequent species on the Canary Islands. In the Mediterranean, it is by far the least common of the Maja species, among which it can easily be distinguished by the morphological characteristics of the dorsal part of the carapace and of the walking legs (see Pastore, 1983) (fig. 1). It was first recorded from the Mediterranean off the coast of Israel in the late 1950’s (Holthuis & Gottlieb, 1958). In the following twenty or more years it was sparsely recorded from the Levantine basin and the Aegean Sea by only a few specimens (Ramadan & Dowidar, 1972; Koukouras, 1979; Kocatas, 1981). Later on, M. goltziana was collected in the Ionian Sea (Pastore, 1983), the Strait of (Pipitone & Tumbiolo, 1993), and the Aegean Sea (d’Udekem d’Acoz, 1994). In fact, d’Udekem d’Acoz (1999) was doubtful about the presence of this species in the Adriatic Sea, based on the record of Maja erinacea Ninni, 1924 reported by Števciˇ c´ (1990). More recently, two new records have extended the known geographic range of M. goltziana to the western Mediterranean, notably to the southern (Rinelli et al., 2000) and the northern (Vignoli et al., 2004) Tyrrhenian Sea. The present paper reports about two findings of M. goltziana in the southern Tyrrhenian, and confirms its established presence in the western Mediterranean Sea.

3) e-mail: [email protected] © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2005 Crustaceana 78 (1): 121-124 Also available online: www.brill.nl 122 NOTES AND NEWS

Fig. 1. Maja goltziana d’Oliveira, 1888 (1  CL = 82 mm, CW = 71 mm) collected at Banco d’Ischia, 2002, dorsal view.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MATERIAL

The first specimen was collected in June 2001 in the Gulf of Castellammare (38◦06N12◦52E) during a scientific trawl survey. The net was hauled on a muddy detritic bottom with Echinus acutus Lamarck, 1816 and Leptometra phalangium (J. Müller, 1841), at a depth between 144 and 161 m, from a typical shelf-edge detritic assemblage sensu Kinne & Pérès (1982). Prior to this find, Maja goltziana was recorded only twice from around Sicily (Pipitone & Arculeo, 2003). The second specimen was collected in March 2002 in the near the Banco d’Ischia (40◦42N13◦57E) on a muddy bottom between 60 and 250 m, most probably a terrigenous mud shelf assemblage sensu Kinne & Pérès (1982), during a commercial trawl haul. To our knowledge, this is the first record of this species from the area of the Gulf of Naples (Moncharmont, 1981). Table I contains details on sex and size of each specimen.

REMARKS

Maja goltziana is an eurybathyc species, living on a variety of substrata on the continental shelf and upper slope. The Mediterranean specimens were found at