THE INDOPACIFIC CRUSTACEA STOMATOPODA AND 



BRACHYURA OF THE "ALVA" WORLD CRUISE, 



1931, WILLIAM K. VANDERBILT, COMMANDING. 



By Lee Boone. 



Introduction. , 



The narrative of the "Alva^^ world cruise of 1931 has been delight- 

 fully told in "West Made East With the Loss of a Day," with numer- 

 ous illustrations and a nautical map of the itinerary, by William K. 

 Vanderbilt, Lt. Comdr., U. S. N. R. The present report treats of the 

 Crustacea secured during this cruise and is restricted to the Brachyura 

 and Stomatopoda from the IndoPacific region with the addition of a 

 few specimens of the circumtropic gypsy, Grapsus grapsus Linne, 

 from the Galapagos Archipelago. In bathymetrieal distribution, the 

 present collection is limited to the littoral fauna and largely to the in- 

 habitants of the beauteous coral reefs, gaily caparisoned crabs whose 

 coloring rivals some symbolic Eastern tapestry, each mimicry of sea- 

 wrack, shadow or wave-line patterned by the pseudo-god, Evolution, 

 mute palimpsest of their immemorial struggle for survival. They are 

 almost invisibly a part of their environment, some with living bodies 

 sea-sculptured like the dome of an orient temple, or squatting Buddha- 

 like obeisant to the tides, others meticulously armored like an ancient 

 Samurai warrior, guard the mysteries of some coral cavern. Beneath 

 the unpromising mud of the tide-line Stomatopoda with carven bodies 

 of living jade, curl around their amber eggs, fanning the sea in 

 rhythmic current, until these globes of amber transform into wafer- 

 thin, opalescent young and float oif to sea. Centuries before a Mace- 

 donian merchant pioneered in primitive sailing vessel the sea-route so 

 recently travelled by the "Alva," some of these crabs were exquisitely 

 carven in ivory or jade for the pleasuring of the early emperors of the 

 Chou dynasty and presented at the royal court in token that the em- 

 peror was overlord of the mighty "Dragon of the Waters." Scylla 

 serrata, well represented in the present collection, is a "living fossil" 

 of unusual interest, geologically preceding ancient man. It is one of 

 the largest crabs surviving and is known also from the Miocene beds 



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