Introduction 



The original objective of this study was to describe the abundant 

 but httle-known freshwater and terrestrial decapod crustaceans of 

 Dominica. We gradually came to the reahzation, however, that even 

 the intensive collecting by those who participated in the Bredin- 

 Archbold-Smithsonian Biological Survey of Dominica hardly could 

 be expected to reveal every species that might occur on that island at 

 any time. In order to lend completeness to the Dominican coverage 

 and to make the study useful to biologists interested in the faunas of 

 other islands, we decided to include the 92 species known from all of 

 the West Indies. We have attempted, therefore, to offer a provisional 

 handbook of the decapods that may occur naturally in reduced sahni- 

 ties or above high-tide line on any of the islands from Bermuda to 

 Trinidad and throughout the Caribbean Sea. 



Previously published studies on the Dominican decapod fauna alone 

 are limited to the brief accounts by Pocock (1889) and G. E. Verrill 

 (1892). The freshwater and terrestrial decapods of eastern tropical 

 America have been treated heretofore as a group in Young (1900), 

 A. E. Verrill (1908), and Holthuis (1959), but only the first of these 

 authors covers the true West Indian region. Certain of the famihes 

 or higher groups are dealt with in Rathbun (1933), Schmitt (1935), 

 Chace and Holthuis (1948), Hart (1961b), and Hartnoll (1964, 1965), 

 as well as in monographic works of broader geographic coverage such 

 as Rathbun (1905, 1906, 1918, 1930), Bouvier (1925), and Holthuis 

 (1952). 



In the present review of the fauna, illustrations showing the color 

 patterns — prepared from notes, sketches, and color photographs made 

 in the field — are given for the 29 species represented by adequate ma- 

 terial in the collections from Dominica, and at least one species of 

 each of the genera not found there is illustrated by an outhne drawing. 

 Our intent to figure the male sexual appendages of all species, those 

 from Dominica in somewhat greater detail than the others, was not 

 fuUy achieved because of the unavailabihty of adult males of a few of 

 the species. 



The attempt has been made, but probably not always fulfilled, to 

 fist all synonyms of each species (with type-locahties) from the vaUd 

 post-Linnaean Hterature, to indicate aU combinations under which a 

 species has been mentioned in pubhcations, and to cite all references 

 to Dominican records and to one or more recent works containing 



1 



