Nucia speciosa

Dana, 1852

Body with vesiculous granules. Carapace strongly convex, broader than long. Front produced, broadly and bluntly bidentate. Dorsal surface of the carapace with an inversed V-shaped groove extending from the front to the intestinal region; there are six small tubercles on each side of this groove. Cardiac and intestinal regions convex. There are five tubercles on each lateral border of the carapace and two on the posterior border. These tubercles are more distinct in male than in female. Extremity of buccal cavity with a small tubercle on each side.
Chelipeds stout. Merus cylindrical with distal end broader than base. Fingers with acuminate granules, with fine teeth on cutting edge.
Male abdomen with 3rd to 5th segment fused. First male pleopod stout with its distal end bifid: the inner branch short and blunt; the outer one long and pointed. (Chen, H., 1989: 200)

Type locality: Sandwich Island, Hawaiian Islands.
Range: Red Sea; Mauritius (Bouvier, 1915b, Michel, 1964); Japan - Amami-Oshima and Yoron-jima (Sakai, 1976a), Ogasawara-shoto (Takeda & Kurata, 1976b); China - Paracel Islands (Chen, 1980, Dai & Yang, 1991); Philippines - south of Tablas Island (Chen H., 1989); Indonesia - Sangir Island (Ihle, 1918), Ambon (de Man, 1888d), Ternate; New Caledonia - Poum (Takeda & Nunomura, 1976); Hawaiian Islands- Sandwich Island (Dana, 1852), Molokai and vicinity of Laysan Island (Rathbun, 1906); Line Islands - Tabuaeran (Edmondson, 1923); between high and low tidal zone to 56 m.

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