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Munida rugosa

Munida rugosa
Munida Rugosa - Grotta di Nereo - primo piano.jpg
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Family: Galatheidae
Genus: Munida
Species: M. rugosa
Binomial name
Munida rugosa
(Fabricius, 1775)
Synonyms
  • Astacus bamffius Pennant, 1777
  • Cancer bamfficus
  • Cancer rugosus (Fabricius, 1775)
  • Galathea bamfia
  • Galathea longipeda Lamarck, 1801
  • Galathea rugosa (Fabricius, 1775)
  • Munida bamffia (Pennant, 1777)
  • Munida bamffica (Pennant, 1777)
  • Munida bamffica var. rugosa
  • Munida bamfica
  • Munida banffica
  • Munida rondeletii Bell, 1846
  • Pagurus rugosus Fabricius, 1775

Munida rugosa, commonly known as the rugose squat lobster or plated lobster, is a species of decapod crustacean found in the north east Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

There has been confusion over the nomenclature of certain members of the genus Munida for some time but in 1986, A. L. Rice and Michèle de Saint Laurent examined the literature and specimens in collections and determined that there were four species involved. They determined that the correct names were Munida rugosa (Fabricius, 1775), M. tenuimana G. O. Sars, 1872, M. intermedia A. Milne Edwards & Bouvier, 1899, and M. sarsi Huus, 1935. The first three species occur in both the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea while M. sarsi is found only in the Atlantic. The name M. bamffia was used extensively in the 19th century and early 20th century but it seems to have been used for two species, M. intermedia and M. rugosa. The specific epithet "bamffius" was itself an error as Thomas Pennant was naming his newly described species after the town of Banff in Scotland near where his specimen was found.

M. rugosa is orange with transverse bands of darker colour on the carapace and abdomen. It is up to 10 centimetres (3.9 in) long but like other members of the genus, it folds its abdomen beneath its cephalothorax. The carapace including the rostrum is about 30 millimetres (1.2 in) long. The carapace has a few spines on the back edge and the rostrum has a single central spine, flanked by two shorter spines above the eyes. The thread-like antennae are slightly shorter than the first pair of appendages which are tipped by long narrow white pincers. The next three pairs of limbs also have white tips and are used for walking. The fifth pair is particularly thin and is usually held underneath the margins of the carapace. The eyes are relatively small in this species and the morphology varies over its range. More southerly specimens are more spiny, have more setae on the abdomen and have longer, more slender limbs.


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