Matutidae is a
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of
crab
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...
s, sometimes called ''moon crabs'',
for swimming or digging. They differ from the swimming crabs of the family
Portunidae
Portunidae is a family of crabs which contains the swimming crabs. Its members include well-known shoreline crabs such as the blue crab (''Callinectes sapidus'') and velvet crab ('' Necora puber'').
Description
Portunid crabs are characterised b ...
in that all five pairs of
legs are flattened, rather than just the last pair, as in Portunidae. Crabs in the Matutidae are
aggressive predator
Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...
s.
Taxonomy
Traditionally, this taxon contained the single genus ''
Matuta'', and was considered a subfamily of the
Calappidae.
Now, the group is
ranked as a family and six genera (four extant and two fossil) are now recognised.
Although placed in the
Calappoidea, it is not clear that Matutidae and Calappidae are closely related.
*''
Ashtoret''
Galil & P. F. Clark, 1994
*† ''
Eomatuta''
De Angeli & Marchiori, 2009
*''
Izanami
, formally referred to with the honorific , is the creator deity of both creation and death in Japanese mythology, as well as the Shinto mother goddess. She and her brother-husband Izanagi are the last of the seven generations of primordial ...
''
Galil & P. F. Clark, 1994
*''
Matuta''
Weber, 1795
*''
Mebeli''
Galil & P. F. Clark, 1994
*† ''
Szaboa''
Müller & Galil, 1998
Image:Ashtoret picta (photo Miguel Ramirez).jpg, '' Ashtoret picta''
Image:Specimen of Izanami curtispina.JPG, '' Izanami curtispina''
Image:Matuta victor - National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo - DSC06764.JPG, ''Matuta victor
''Matuta victor'', also known as the common moon crab, is a species of crab belonging to the family Matutidae. It is a medium-sized coastal crab, native to the warm beaches of the Indo-Pacific. It has also been introduced to the Mediterranean Sea ...
''
Image:Specimen of Matuta planipes.jpg, '' Matuta planipes''
Fossil record
''
Szaboa'' is known only from
Hungarian fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
deposits of
Middle Miocene
The Middle Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), epoch made up of two Stage (stratigraphy), stages: the Langhian and Serravallian stages. The Middle Miocene is preceded by the Early Miocene.
The sub-epoch lasted from 15.97 ± 0. ...
age.
''
Eomatuta'' was described from the
Middle Eocene
The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', ' Dawn') a ...
of
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
in 2009.
Fossils of ''
Ashtoret'' have also been found in
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
deposits in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2298078
Calappoidea
Taxa named by Wilhem de Haan