Authors: Darren C J Yeo Peter K L Ng Neil Cumberlidge Célio Magalhães Savel R Daniels Martha R Campos
Publish Date: 2007/12/18
Volume: 595, Issue: 1, Pages: 275-286
Abstract
An assessment of the global freshwater crab diversity is presented A total of 1476 species in 14 families are currently known from all zoogeographical regions except Antarctica including 1306 species in eight exclusively freshwater families Pseudothelphusidae Trichodactylidae Potamonautidae Deckeniidae Platythelphusidae Potamidae Gecarcinucidae and Parathelphusidae Estimates of true freshwater crab diversity including likely numbers of undescribed taxa suggest that the field remains largely in a “discovery” phase Main ideas on the origins diversification and phylogeny of true freshwater crabs are briefly discussed The economic importance of freshwater crabs is also highlightedThis study has benefited from the help and advice from many colleagues We thank Tohru Naruse and Paul Clark for their many helpful comments and suggestions which have helped improve the manuscript Support from the Belgium Biodiversity Platform the Belgian Science Policy the Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences and the Department of Biological Sciences National University of Singapore is gratefully acknowledged
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