Potamonautes

Potamonautes is a genus of African freshwater crabs in the family Potamonautidae. It is both the most widespread and most diverse genus of African freshwater crabs, including more than half the species of this continent.[2] They are found in most freshwater habitats of the African mainland and some species are semi-terrestrial.[2]

Potamonautes
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous–Recent
Potamonautes sidneyi
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Infraorder: Brachyura
Family: Potamonautidae
Subfamily: Potamonautinae
Genus: Potamonautes
Macleay, 1838 [1]
Type species
Thelphusa perlata

Species

It contains the following species:[1][3]

One extant species is also known from the fossil record;[4] P. niloticus is abundant in Miocene sediments (6 million years ago) of Lake Albert. Extinct species assigned to Potamonautes are also known from the Late Cretaceous of Niger.[5]

Distribution

Potamonautes are restricted to Sub-Saharan Africa and the Nile Basin, with more than 30 species in East Africa (none on Madagascar, the Seychelles and other offshore African islands), more than 20 in the Congo Basin region, 20 in Southern Africa, 6 in northeast Africa and 5 in West Africa.[2] Although the genus includes common and widespread species, others have very restricted ranges of occurrence.[2] For example, P. dubious is found only in limited parts of the Kunene River and upper Zambezi River in Southern Africa.[6]

References
  1. Peter K. L. Ng; Danièle Guinot & Peter J. F. Davie (2008). "Systema Brachyurorum: Part I. An annotated checklist of extant Brachyuran crabs of the world" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 17: 1–286.
  2. Yeo, C.J.; Klaus, S.; and Cumberlidge, N. (2014). Advances in Freshwater Decapod Systematics and Biology. Pp. 86-87. ISBN 9789004207608
  3. Daniels, Savel R.; Bittencourt-Silva, Gabriela B.; Muianga, Vanessa; Bayliss, Julian (2020-09-11). "Phylogenetics of the freshwater crab (Potamonautes MacLeay, 1838) fauna from 'sky islands' in Mozambique with the description of a new species (Brachyura: Potamoidea: Potamonautidae)". European Journal of Taxonomy (716). doi:10.5852/ejt.2020.716. ISSN 2118-9773.
  4. Sammy De Grave; N. Dean Pentcheff; Shane T. Ahyong; et al. (2009). "A classification of living and fossil genera of decapod crustaceans" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Suppl. 21: 1–109.
  5. Michael Dobson (2004). "Freshwater crabs in Africa". Freshwater Forum. 21: 3–26. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-06-23. Retrieved 2011-11-23.
  6. C.Michael Hogan. 2012. Kunene River. eds. P.Saundry & C.Cleveland. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and the Environment. Washington DC.
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