Longipotamonautes
Creators: name: Cumberlidge, Neil
name: Daniels, Savel R.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Malacostraca
Decapoda
Potamonautidae
Longipotamonautes

description: GENUS LONGIPOTAMONAUTES (BOTT, 1955) STAT. NOV.
(FIGS 1B 2, 4D–F, 9B; TABLES 1–3)
Zoobank registration: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: A3AD3513-16B3-461A-82CD-C4CE7E88E8AD
Thelphusa A. Milne-Edwards, 1886: 149; 1887: 132, pl. 7: fig. 2, fig. 2a.
Potamon De Man, 1898: 436; Chace, 1942: 206.
Potamon (Potamonautes) Rathbun, 1900: 284.
Potamon (Potamon) Rathbun, 1904: 296, pl. 12, fig. 9; 1921: 419–422, pl. 27, 28, figs 1, 10.
Potamonautes (Longipotamonautes) Bott, 1955: 244–245, pl. 7: fig. 2a–d, figs 23, 73; Coulter, 1991: 256.
Potamonautes Balss, 1936: 174–177, figs 9, 12, 13; Ng et al., 2008: 171; Cumberlidge, 2008: 72, 77, tab. 1; 2011: 79, 82–83, tabs 6.1, 6.3.
Diagnosis: Epibranchial tooth large, pointed, directed forward; third maxilliped ischium smooth, lacking vertical sulcus; S3/4 incomplete, missing except for deep notches on lateral ends; G1 TA medium long (TA length 0.33 × SA length), tubular, with parallel sides, medial and lateral folds low (Fig. 4A–B); telson bell-shaped with lateral margins indented; pleon broadly triangular, sides, base subequal. Major chela propodus lower margin longer than carapace width; dactylus slim, highly arched; G1 TA tip broad with hook (Fig. 4D–F); anterolateral margin between exorbital tooth, epibranchial tooth with variable number of large pointed teeth.
Type species: Thelphusa ballayi A. Milne-Edwards, 1886, by original designation.
Species included: Longipotamonautes acristatus (Bott, 1955) comb. nov., Longipotamonautes adentatus (Bott, 1955) comb. nov., Longipotamonautes ballayi (A. Milne- Edwards, 1886) comb. nov., Longipotamonautes nheenae (Cumberlidge, 2017a) comb. nov., L. paecilei (A. Milne- Edwards, 1886)comb.nov., Longipotamonautespunctatus (Bott, 1955) comb. nov., Longipotamonautes reidi (Cumberlidge, 1999) comb. nov., Longipotamonautes schubotzi (Balss,1936) comb.nov. and Longipotamonautes semilunaris (Bott, 1955) comb. nov.
Distribution: Lo. acristatus, Lo. adentatus, Lo. ballayi, Lo. paecilei and Lo. punctatus are all found in the D.R. Congo, Lo. schubotzi is found in the Central African Republic, Lo. reidi is found in Nigeria and Cameroon and Lo. nheenae is endemic to Gabon (Balss, 1936; Bott, 1955; Cumberlidge, 1999, 2017a; Cumberlidge & Boyko, 2000; Cumberlidge & Reed, 2004; Fig. 9B).
R e m a r k s: S u b g e n u s P o t a m o n a u t e s (Longipotamonautes) Bott, 1955 is given genus rank and is re-described here. Bott (1955) established Potamonautes (Longipotamonautes) with Thelphusa ballayi A. Milne-Edwards, 1886 as the type species and included four species and two subspecies in this subgenus. Longipotamonautes is established here to accommodate seven species of freshwater crabs from the Lower Congo Basin in Central Africa that were previously considered to be species of Potamonautes s.l. All six taxa that Bott (1955) assigned to Po. (Longipotamonautes) are transferred here to Longipotamonautes, with the addition of Lo. nheenae from Gabon and Lo. reidi from Nigeria and Cameroon. Unfortunately, DNA data are only available for one of these species, Lo. ballayi. The phylogeny presented here (Fig. 1) together with those of Daniels & Klaus (2018: fig 1) and Wood et al. (2019: fig. 1) consistently recovered Lo. ballayi as part of a well-defined clade (Fig. 1B 2) that is sister to the branch represented by Erimetopus, and separate from the clades of Maritimonautini (Fig. 1B1) and Potamonautini (Fig. 1B 3). The other species are included in Longipotamonautes based on shared morphological characters that conform to the above generic diagnosis.
description: Published as part of Cumberlidge, Neil & Daniels, Savel R., 2022, A new multilocus phylogeny reveals overlooked diversity in African freshwater crabs (Brachyura: Potamoidea): a major revision with new higher taxa and genera, pp. 1268-1311 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 194 (4) on page 1291, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab082, http://zenodo.org/record/6461478