1895.] A. Alcock — Carcinological Fauna of India. 179 
Echinoplax pungens , Wood-Mason. 
Echinoplax pungens , Wood-Mason, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., March, 1891, p. 259. 
Carapace pyriform, convex, with the regions well delimited ; densely 
covered, as are also the sterna, chelipeds, ambulatory legs, and exter¬ 
nal maxillipeds, with pungent acicular spines. The abdominal terga of 
the male and young female are also similarly spiny, but in the adult 
female they become only distantly and coarsely granular. 
The rostrum consists of two slender curved divergent spines—less 
than one-third the length of the carapace proper—the outer and lower 
surfaces of which are extremely spiny. 
The eye-stalks, which have the anterior surface closely spinulate, 
are retractile, but not to the extent of concealment: there is a strong 
post-ocular spine—to which, however, the retracted eye does not nearly 
reach—and numerous smaller spines along the supra-ocular and infra¬ 
ocular margins. The antennae are visible from above, from the middle 
of the second joint of the peduncle: the peduncle is spiny, with all the 
joints very slender: the flagellum reaches a little beyond the tip of the 
rostrum. 
The interantennulary spine is large and deeply bifid. 
The chelipeds, which are alike in form in both sexes—though rela¬ 
tively longer in the male—are not stouter than the ambulatory legs, 
and are rather longer than the carapace and rostrum. 
The legs of the next pair are more than twice, and those of the 
third pair rather less than twice the length of the chelipeds, while the 
fourth and fifth pairs decrease considerably in length : the dactyli of all 
are densely covered with a brushwork of setse. 
* 
Male (adult). 
Female (adult). 
Length of carapace and rostrum 
... 70 millim. 
79 millim. 
Greatest breadth of carapace 
... 47 ,, 
57 „ 
Length of cheliped 
... 76 ,, 
75 „ 
„ „ 2nd pair 
... 158 „ 
191 „ 
Andaman Sea, 130-250 fathoms. 
A figure of this fine species has been drawn for “ Illustrations of 
the Zoology of the 1 Investigator ’ ” for 1896. 
Echinoplax rubida , n. sp. 
Differs from Echinoplax pungens, specimens of the same sex, and of 
approximately the same size being compared, in the following parti¬ 
culars :— 
1. The carapace, instead of being everywhere covered with pun- 
J. ii. 23 
