H. Milne Edwards, 1852
Carapace varying from nearly rounded to transversally rectangular, often similar to a xanthoid form. Surface generally faintly or not areolated. Exorbital angle marked or not with a tooth. Antero-lateral borders usually short, armed with one, two, rarely three teeth or spines behind the exorbital angle. Ornamentation of the antero-lateral border sometimes becoming obscure and even obsolete with regard to the age, the spiniform teeth of the young becoming blunt and obscure or even completely lacking in large adults. Front much narrower than the greatest breadth of carapace, square-cut and rather straight, faintly notched. Antennules folded transversally. Supraorbital border marked, or not, with a single faint fissure. Antenna with the basal article short and the flagellum standing loosely in the open orbital hiatus. Chelipeds often with heterochely and heterodonty pronounced. In some species, chelipeds varying in length or strength with regard to sex and age, the larger males having their chelipeds sometimes extremely elongated or stout and the chela robust; fingers sometimes with a black or light brown colouration present, more or less extended, and often different on the two chelipeds. Ambulatory legs generally elongate, unarmed; P5 often with the propodus and dactylus compressed and broadened. Abdomen with all segments distinct, the third segment either covering the whole width of the sternum between bases of last pairs of legs or leaving exposed a part of the sternite 8. (Guinot 1998)
Type species: Cancer (Curtonotus) longimanus de Haan, 1833, by subsequent designation by Glaessner, 1929.
Gender feminine.
Species treated:
Carcinoplax eburnea Stimpson, 1858
Carcinoplax longimanus (de Haan, 1833)
Carcinoplax longipes (Wood-Mason, 1891)
Carcinoplax longispinosa Chen, 1984
Carcinoplax meridionalis Rathbun, 1923
Carcinoplax microphthalmus Guinot & Richer de Forges, 1981
Carcinoplax purpurea Rathbun, 1914
Carcinoplax surugensis Rathbun, 1932
Carcinoplax tomentosa Sakai, 1969
Carcinoplax vestita (de Haan, 1835)