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Taipei, March 29 (CNA) A local academic and naturalist has documented a new fiddler crab species, which he first spotted in the offshore county of Penghu, after discovering it had been previously misidentified.
"This marks the first time that a new fiddler crab species has been discovered in nearly 20 years, " said Shih Hsi-te, an associate professor in National Chung Hsing University's Department of Life Sciences, who made the discovery.
Shih said the new species is named Uca jocelynae sp. nov. to commemorate Jocelyn Crane (1909-1998) , who made outstanding contributions to the study of fiddler crabs. It is the first fiddler crab species to be documented by Asian scholars.
Shih and researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the University of Okinawa (NUO) co-authored a report on their findings that was published in the New Zealand-based Zootaxa, an international journal for zoological taxonomists, earlier this year.
The new species thrives in tidal flats or nearly flat coastal areas alternately covered and exposed by the tides, and clean beaches are the species' favorite ecological environment.
Ironically the fiddler crab is widely distributed in Western Pacific islands, including Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, Shih said, but scientists had previously identified it with the Uca neocultrimana species, more commonly known as the "northern fiddler crab." After first spotting the special fiddler crab in the tidal flats in Penghu's Siyu Township, Shih noticed differences between it and the Uca neocultrimana and decided to investigate further.
He and his team began morphological and molecular research on the species and collaborated with NUS and NUO animal taxonomists in examining and comparing data from more than 50 fiddle crab specimens.
The researchers discovered that the crabs' DNA and its form and structure were different enough from all other fiddler crab species to justify describing the crabs as as new species.
Among the Uca jocelynae's unique features are the large chelae, or claw, on its right side and two deep depressions on its fixed finger, Shih said.
The researchers also pointed to differences in carapace features and the form of the vulvae (the external part of the female's genitalia).
The team's molecular analysis shows that the newly discovered species has probably existed on the planet for millions of years. Like other fiddler crab species, Uca jocelynae can filter organisms like bacteria and algae from sediment and spit out silt or sand.
Noting that fiddler crabs are dominating animals in tidal flats, Shih said many scholars have dedicated themselves to study them, but no new fiddler crab species had been identified since 1987. (By Hau Hsueh-ching and Sofia Wu) enditem/ls