A new species of karst-dwelling freshwater crab of the genus Chinapotamon Dai & Naiyanetr, 1994 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura: Potamidae), from Guizhou, southwest China.

ABSTRACT

Chinapotamon maolanense sp. n. from Maolan National Nature Reserve, Guizhou, southwest China, is described. C. maolanense sp. n. has diagnostic features of Chinapotamon, such as a slender and sinuous male first gonopod, prominently convex carapace, and one-third ratio of frons to carapace width. This new species can be distinguished from congeners by the combination of the following characters relatively slender subterminal segment of the first gonopods, nearly oval-shaped carapace, anterolateral margin cristate of carapace and an oval-shaped gap between the fingers of the male major chela. In addition, we used a 16S rRNA gene fragment to explore the relationship between C. maolanense sp. n. and C. glabrum, C. depressum and other freshwater crabs distributed in Guizhou; the results support the new species being assigned to Chinapotamon and clearly different from other species used in the analysis.