Morphological Description of Megalopal Stages of Three Portunid Species (Decapoda, 2 Brachyura, Portunidae) from Indus Deltaic Area (northern-Arabian Sea)

Year 2023, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 46 - 60, 12.04.2023

Urwah Inam Qadeer Mohammad Ali Quratulan Ahmed Levent Bat

https://doi.org/10.28978/nesciences.1281619

Abstract

The larvae of crustaceans, including those of brachyuran crabs, are a significant part of
zooplanktonic communities constituting an ecologically important fraction of the pelagic
communities. The present study describes taxonomic studies on three megalop stages of Portunus
pelagicus (Linnaeus, 1758), Charybdis feriatus (Linnaeus, 1758) and Carcinus maenas (Linnaeus,
1758) belonging to family Portunidae collected from Indus deltaic creek system. Zooplankton
samples were collected from three locations: Shahbandar 24°15’48.083’N, 67°90’15’333’E,
Ketibandar 24°9’16.06’N, 67°27’7.64’E and Korangi creek 24°48’18.80’’N, 67°12’30.31’E
during April to October 2018. No data available on taxonomic studies of portunid megalops upto
species level from Paksitan, hence this is a first attempt to examine and to describe taxonomic
features of megalops collected in the zooplankton samples. This study will contribute to the
scientific knowledge on megalops taxonomy and identification as well as be useful for future
research by taxonomists and biologists.

Keywords

Megalops, taxonomic features, portunid species, Indus deltaic area