J. Black Sea/Mediterranean Environment Vol. 23, No. 2: 191-195 (2017)

SHORT COMMUNICATION

A new locality for common box , victor (Fabricius, 1781), from the eastern Mediterranean Sea

A. Suat Ateş1*, Tuncer Katağan2, Mehmet Sert3, Şükran Y. Özdilek3

1 Faculty of Marine Sciences and Technology, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, 17100 Çanakkale, TURKEY 2 Faculty of Fisheries Department of Hydrobiology, Ege University, 35100 Bornova, İzmir, TURKEY 3 Department of Biology, Faculty of Art and Sciences, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, 17100 Çanakkale, TURKEY

*Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

A new locality for common box crab, Matuta victor (Forskål 1775) is here reported from the eastern Mediterranan. Single female individual of M. victor was observed burried in sand on İztuzu Beach, Muğla, on 25 May 2017.

Key words: Matuta victor, , alien, the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey

Received: 20.06.2017, Accepted: 18.09.2017

Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781) is one of the four species (Matuta circulifera Miers, 1880, Fabricius, 1798, Matuta purnama J.C.Y. Lai and Galil, 2007, Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781) of the Matuta (Weber, 1795) in the world oceans (Ng et al. 2008). Common moon crab, M. victor, is widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Red Sea (Galil and Mendelson 2013). M. victor is the single species of the genus Matuta found in the Mediterranean. Another species ( lunaris) of lunar moon was previosuly reported as Matuta banskii Leach, 1817 by Galil and Golani (1990) from the Mediterranean, Israel coast. Recently, M. victor was for the first time reported by Galil and Mendelson (2013) from the area off Hafia Bay on the Israleli coast. The second record of M. victor for the Mediterranan was presented by Crocetta and Bariche (2015) from the Lebanese coast.

Family: Matutidae de Hann, 1841 Genus: Matuta Weber, 1795 Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1791)

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Synonyms: Matuta crebripunctata Miers, 1877, Matuta lesuerii Leach, 1817, Matuta peronii Leach, 1817

Figure 1. The observation localities for Matuta victor in the eastern Mediterranean (♦: New locality, ●: Previous localities)

A single female specimen of M. victor was observed as buried in the beach sands of İztuzu Beach, Muğla (36˚47ʹ09˝ N, 28˚37ʹ41˝ E) on 25 May 2017. A single specimen is deposited (in the collection of Dr. Ates) at the Faculty of Marine Sciences and Technology, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University.

Figure 2. Dorsal view of the female specimen of Matuta victor, CW: 40 mm (Photographed by A.S. Ates)

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a b c

Figure 3. a: Left cheliped, b: antero-lateral margin, c: posterior part of carapace of Matuta victor

M. victor prefers sandy areas at the depths between 0 and 20 m and is caught by nets, hand, or beach seines (Ng 1998; Ng and Huang 1997). Matutid crabs have ability to bury themselves very quickly into sand (Bellwood 2002).

M. victor is known from the eastern Mediterranean (Galil and Mendelson 2013; Crocetta and Bariche 2015), the Suez Canal, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, East Africa, Madagascar, Malaysia, Indonesia, the south China Sea, Japan, Australia (Galil and Mendelson 2013), Philipinnes, New Caledonia, Fiji, New Hebrides (Ng 1998), Taiwan coast (Ng and Huang 1997; Ng et al. 2001), and the southern Thailand coast (Fazrul et al. 2015).

Ng (1998) pointed out that diagnose of M. victor is seriosuly confused with A. slunaris (Forskal, 1775). While A. lunaris has both the prominent tubercle porteriorly on antero-lateral margin, there is a transversely serrate carina on cheliped dactylus of M. victor. Galil and Clark (1994) published a revision study on genus, Matuta Weber, 1795 and solved significant problems related to the identification of A. lunaris, M. banksi, and M. victor. While they included A. lunaris and M. banksi to the genus Ashtoret, they refered M. victor to the genus Matuta. Ng et al. (2002) stated that all the individuals studied on the west coast of Thailand belonged to M. victor (previously reviewed as A. lunaris). Carapace surface of M. victor is covered by small and evenly scattered black dots. Furthermore, we think that four female specimens of moon crabs given by Turan et al. (2015) as A. lunaris from İskenderun Bay (the eastern Mediterranean) could be individuals belonging to M. victor. Recently, Gökoğlu et al. (2016) announced the presence of M. victor from the Turkish coast of the Mediterranean (the coast of Phaselis Ancient City, Antalya Bay). As mentioned before, moon crabs, M. victor and A. lunaris, are very easy to confuse taxonomically. In this context, we consider that the individuals of moon crabs reported in previous studies, such as Turan et al. (2015) and Gökoğlu et al. (2016), need to be examined more in detail taxonomically.

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Doğu Akdeniz’den yaygın ay yengeci, Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781) için yeni bir lokalite

Öz

Doğu Akdeniz’den yaygın ay yengeci, Matuta victor (Forskål 1775) için yeni bir lokalite burada rapor edilmektedir. M. victor’a ait bir dişi birey 25 Mayıs 2017’de İztuzu Plajı kıyılarında, Muğla kuma gömülü olarak gözlenmiştir.

Anahtar kelimeler: Matuta victor, Matutidae, yabancı, doğu Akdeniz, Türkiye

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