212 Bulletin, Vanderlilt Marine Museum, Vol. II 



Percnon gibhesi Ratubun, Rapport betreffende een vooloopig onder- 

 zoek naar de toestand van de visscherij en de Industrie van zee- 

 producten in de Kolonie Curagao, vol. 1, p. 341, 197; Bull. 97, 

 U. S. Nat. Mus., p. 337, pi. 105, 1918 ; Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde, 

 Natura Artis Magistra te Amsterdam, Aflev. 23, p. 18, 1924. 



Family : GECARCINIDAE Dana. 



Genus : CARDISOMA Latreille. 

 Cardisoma guanhumi Latreille. 



Plate 72. 



Names : Gray land crab ; mulatto land crab ; tourlourou ; gaunhumi. 



Diagnostic characters: A large species, adults bluish grey, occa- 

 sionally with a greenish cast; young, violet to purple. Male appen- 

 dages of the first abdominal segment with blunt extremity. 



Type: Latreille 's type came from Brazil and is deposited in the 

 Paris Museum. 



Distribution : A land dwelling species, known from southern Flor- 

 ida, the Bermudas, the Bahamas, southward through all the West 

 Indian Islands, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and down to 

 Sao Paulo, Brazil. Bouvier has also reported this crab from "West 

 Africa.* 



Material examined: One female from Miami Beach, Florida, 

 February, 1922. 



Habits: The giant land crab of the southern United States, West 

 Indian region and northern South America is gregarious, living both 

 in open fields and wooded lands. It builds deep rambling tunnel-like 

 burrows in the earth, usually near moisture. In these tunnels the 

 crabs spend a great part of the day, venturing forth at night to obtain 

 their food. In periods of drought the crabs will close the entrance to 

 their tunnels with moist earth, in an effort to retain the moisture in 

 the homes. In the breeding season they go down to the sea in vast 

 numbers and deposit their eggs; the larval stages of the young are 

 passed in the sea, but when they attain a length of one-quarter inch, 



* Footnote. — Bull. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, p. 13, 1901. 



