Callinectes arcuatus
Encyclopedia
Callinectes arcuatus is a species of swimming crab
Portunidae
Portunidae is a family of crabs which contains the swimming crabs.-Description:Portunid crabs are characterised by the flattening of the fifth pair of legs into broad paddles, which are used for swimming...

 in the genus Callinectes
Callinectes
Callinectes is a genus of crabs, containing 16 species, including the Atlantic blue crab, C. sapidus:*Callinectes affinis Fausto, 1980*Callinectes amnicola *Callinectes arcuatus Ordway, 1863...

that lives along the Pacific coast of Central America.

Distribution and ecology

C. arcuatus is found along the Pacific
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 coast of North and Central America from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 southwards. Its diet comprises fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, molluscs
Mollusca
The Mollusca , common name molluscs or mollusksSpelled mollusks in the USA, see reasons given in Rosenberg's ; for the spelling mollusc see the reasons given by , is a large phylum of invertebrate animals. There are around 85,000 recognized extant species of molluscs. Mollusca is the largest...

, shrimp
Shrimp
Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

 and plant matter. Occasionally, populations become established in bays in southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

, which are thought to represent single cohorts transported as larvae
Crustacean larvae
Crustaceans may pass through a number of larval and immature stages between hatching from their eggs and reaching their adult form. Each of the stages is separated by a moult, in which the hard exoskeleton is shed to allow the animal to grow...

; these populations typically die out within a fea years.

Fishery

A small fishery for this species is carried out in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

, run by 10–15 fishermen in the Golfo de Nicoya. The fishery is subject to a maximum of 1600 traps, but the size of caught males was already decreasing in 2009, and the market appeared to be saturated.

Taxonomy

Callinectes arcuatus was described in 1863 by Albert Ordway in his monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...

 of the genus Callinectes
Callinectes
Callinectes is a genus of crabs, containing 16 species, including the Atlantic blue crab, C. sapidus:*Callinectes affinis Fausto, 1980*Callinectes amnicola *Callinectes arcuatus Ordway, 1863...

, using material collected at Cabo San Lucas
Cabo San Lucas
Cabo San Lucas , commonly called Cabo, is a city at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, in the municipality of Los Cabos in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. As of the 2010 census, the population was 68,463 people...

.
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