FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 72, NO. 3 



Figure 27. — Respective geographic distributions of Callinectes bellicosus Stimpson, C bocourti A. Milne Edwards, C. latimanus 

 Rathbun, C. marginatus (A. Milne Edwards), C. maracaiboensis Taissoun, C. rathbunae Contreras, and C. toxotes Ordway in the 

 Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans based on specimens studied and verified published records. 



on remains from the Quarternary. Williams 

 (1965) uncritically accepted determinations for 

 Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain records from the 

 Miocene to Recent, but study of this material, even 

 though its interpretation is beyond the scope of the 

 present paper, leads to an attitude of restraint. 

 The characters by which Callinectes is distin- 

 guished from other portunid genera, shape of male 

 abdomen and lack of an internal carpal spine on 

 the chelipeds, are rarely evident in the fossil ma- 

 terial, the only undoubted specimens (treated in 

 species accounts below) coming mainly from Pleis- 

 tocene and a few Miocene horizons. All others 

 studied lack characters for positive first order 

 identification and therefore their determinations 

 rest on secondary features such as shape of the 

 chelae or other nondiagnostic parts of the body. 

 Although the numerous cheliped fragments most 

 resemble these parts in living species of Cal- 



linectes, they also resemble those of Ovalipes and 

 certain Portunus, especially the large P. pelagi- 

 cus and P. sanguinolentus distributed widely in 

 the Indo-Pacific region today (Stephenson, 1962), 

 as well as the robust Arenaeus cribrarius and A. 

 mexicana, respectively from Atlantic and Pacific 

 shores of the Western Hemisphere (Rathbun, 

 1930). A single propodal finger of a form attrib- 

 uted to P. sayi reported from the Miocene of 

 Florida (Rathbun, 1935) greatly resembles other 

 remains attributed to Callinectes. Margins of 

 warmer seas of early and mid Tertiary (Ekman, 

 1953; Hazel, 1971) could have favored such forms 

 or others like contemporary Scj-Z/a of Indo-Pacific 

 waters, fossil representatives of which were de- 

 scribed [-?] by Rathbun (1919b, 1935) from the 

 Miocene of Florida, Dominican Republic, and 

 Mexico. Judging by ecological requirements of 

 living species, Callinectes would have been well 



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