Stimpson, 1858
A female specimen from Bôko Is., Formosa, sent by Mr. U. O of Tainan, well agreed to Stimpson's description and figure; it is apparently a small species, and is akin to the common Japanese species, Philyra kanekoi Sakai, the points of difference between the two are as follows:
The upper surface of the carapace is evenly convex, the branchio-cardiac grooves are not so markedly depressed as in Ph. kanekoi; the postfrontal and post-hepatic surfaces are also not markedly depressed as in the other species. The gastric, cardiac and branchial surfaces are covered with distant vesiculous granules but the remaining surfaces are almost smooth. In Philyra kanekoi, the granules are distributed almost over the whole surface excepting the branchio-cardiac grooves.
The front is almost truncate and not grooved above in the median line, while in Philyra kanekoi it is deeply grooved and its anterior margin markedly depressed in the middle.
The chelipeds are more massive but the ambulatory legs are more slender, compared with those of Ph. kanekoi of nearly equal size.
The abdomen of female is very smooth and glabrous except the first three terga and the distal surface of the penultimate tergum; in Philyra kanekoi, however, the whole surface is roughly beaded with granules.
This species has not yet been obtained from Japanese territories.
Shen described and figured this species from Hong Kong in 1931, but his figure seems not precisely to agree with that of Stimpson's paper, i.e. the carapace of Shen's figures is quite circular in outline and the arm of chelipeds entirely covered with granules and the external maxillipeds are figured as having very broad exopodite and narrowly pointed merus. Judging from these diagnoses, I am inclined to believe that his species really agrees with the Indian species, Ph. globulosa Milne Edwards. I have no material of male of this species, so that I am not quite certain about the pleopods of male. (Sakai, 1937)
Type locality: Hong Kong.
Range: Japan - Amakusa (Miyake et al., 1962); Taiwan - P'eng-hu (Sakai, 1937a, 1976, Lin, 1949); Hong Kong (Stimpson, 1858c, 1907).