Typhlocarcinodes crassipes

Tesch, 1918

It is with some hesitation that a new species is established for the single female obtained, as this is most closely related to Typhlocarcinodes hirsutus, but the following points are of importance.
1. The carapace is granulate in a much less conspicuous way, the granules being less numerous and especially not sharpened and prominent towards the margins. The grooves defining the regions, as far as they are visible, present exactly the same course, but are much less distinct. The lateral margins are entire in the middle, not notched, the postero-lateral margins are somewhat concave. The surface of the front is clothed with a dense tuft of feathered hairs, which are longer than those on the eyestalks or on the antero-lateral margins of the carapace. Eyes are completely absent, not even a speck of pigment is to be observed. On the other hand the shape of the front, of the antennulae and antennae and of the external maxillipeds exactly agree with what is found in T. hirsutus. The middle of the anterior margin of the buccal cavity is not thickened, and its lateral margins are convergent backward, quite like in Borradaile's figure of the female of "Caecopilumnus" hirsutus.
The chelipeds are like those of the preceeding species, but the subdistal tooth at the anterior margin of the meropodite is larger and more ridge-like.
The ambulatory legs, especially the propodites, are broader, the propodites of the last pair being even broader than long.
The first segment of the abdomen of the female covers the last sternal segment.
It may be, that the differences enumerated are only due to sex, but Borradaile's female of "Caecopilumnus" hirsutus presents a closely-granulate carapace, with the various regions as well and as sharply defined as in the male; further, eyes are figured and the shape of the ambulatory legs agrees on the whole with what I found in the male of Borradaile's species. But the outline of the buccal cavity narrowing backward again suggests that my specimen indeed is nothing but the female of the preceeding species. We must await more material before this question may be solved; for the present it seems preferable to establish a new species. (Tesch, 1918b: 230)

Type locality: Lucipara Island, Banda Sea, reef.
Range: Japan - Ogasawara-shoto (Sakai, 1955a, 1976), Shiono-misaki (Takeda, 1979a); Banda Sea (Tesch, 1918b).

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