STALK-EYED CRUSTACEA. 



Okder PODOPHTHALMA. 



Suborder DECAPODA. 



Family MAIID^. 



LEPTOPODIA Leach. 

 Zoolog. Misc., II. 15, 1815. 



Leptopodia debilis Smith. 



Aim. Rep. Peabody Acad. Sci. for 1869 and 1870, p. 87, 1871. 



Two specimens, male and female, were collected at low tide on the reef 

 at Panama, March 12. 



Leptopodia debilis is one of the many littoral Crustacea of Panama that are 

 represented by very closely allied species on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus. 

 It is distinguished from Leptopodia sagittaria (Fabr.), its Atlantic represen- 

 tative, chiefly by its shorter hand, relatively longer fingers, and greater 

 breadth across the branchial region of the carajoace. The rostrum is usually 

 shorter and inclined upward more than in L. sagittana; but in the type 

 specimen (M. C. Z. No. 3948, <?, Polvon, Nicaragua), it is exceptionally 

 long, — more than one and a half times as long as the rest of the carapace. 

 In average specimens of L. debilis tlie rostrum is about equal in length to 

 the rest of the carapace. The difference in the form of the male abdomen 

 in L. debilis and in Milne Edwards's figure of L. sagittaria (Cuvier's Eegne 

 Animal, Disciples' ed., Crustacea, Plate XXXVI. Fig. 1''), noted by Smith, 

 arises from the inaccuracy of the figure, not from any real difference between 

 the two species, which are alike in this regard. 



