An annotated checklist of brachyuran crabs from Taiwan (Crustacea ...

Ng et al. : Checklist of crabs from Taiwan 3
litically sensitive Tiaoyutai Islands ( = Diaoyutai Islands, Senkakushato), we have decided not to treat
its fauna. The invertebrate fauna of these islands has been documented by Nakasone and Nagahama
(1971) with additional land crab (Gecarcinidae) records by Ng, Nakasone and Kosuge (2000).
The present annotated list is intended to help the growing number of scientists in and outside Taiwan
who are interested in crab biology, keeping them up to date as to what species are known, their
current scientific names and the major publications reporting on them. As such, we have tried to keep the
data within as current as possible.
Material and methods
Citations for each of the Taiwanese records are provided as far as possible. The literature cited is
only for the Taiwanese records and author citations for individual taxa have been omitted due to space
constraints. We had an enormous problem selecting the publications to be listed here. We had originally
hoped to list all the papers which mention Taiwanese crabs, but this eventually proved impractical. Because
of Taiwan's long history, there have been many small papers reporting on its fauna, particularly
by Japanese workers (Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895-1945). While we have tracked down
many of them, we have not been able to find all. Most of these papers, however, are small reports
which are not significant. There is also an enormous amount of "grey" literature circulating in Taiwan -
in-house journal reports, department reports, magazine articles, booklets, pamphlets, natural history
guides etc., and these often deal with its crab fauna directly or in passing. We found many of these but
we are sure a good number have been missed. Considering the popularity of crabs for seafood, fishing,
aquarium, divers and photographic buffs, it would have been impossible to search for all the "grey" literature
written by these enthusiasts. We are confident we have found (and listed) those few which contain
useful scientific information. Papers or articles in which only the Chinese or Japanese names are cited
(i. e. no scientific names provided) have been excluded.
For the included literature, we have tried to ensure the taxonomic ones have all been listed. Papers
on other biological aspects (e. g. ecology, ethology or toxicology) are listed only when the species they
treat include new records. The same methodology is followed when popular articles, book chapters and
general guidebooks are concerned. All books on crustaceans, however, have been included as we feel
these contain a useful amount of scientific information. Some of the older records cannot be substantiated
and we have used our best judgement in determining if they are accurate. In a few instances, the
identifications are clearly incorrect but we do not know what the original authors were referring to as
their specimens are no longer extant, and as such, we have no choice but to omit them. Although we
have tried to identify the old records as far as possible, in cases where only generic names were provided,
we have chosen to omit these records. This is especially the case for Lin's (1949) paper, although
we have made one exception for his record of " Asthenognathus sp. " (Pinnotheridae), it being the only
report of this genus from Taiwan.
The authors also follow the general guidelines established by the International Code of Zoological
Nomenclature (1999 ) as to what constitutes a publication (e. g. printed using conventional presses and
distributed to a wide audience) and in many cases, these also have ISBN or ISSN numbers. On these
criteria, some special reports (e. g. Jeng, Jan, Tzeng, Feng and Yang, 1994; Jeng, Jan, Tzeng, Feng and
Yang, 1996; Jeng, Jan, Tzeng and Feng, 1997; Jeng, Shao, Tzeng, Feng and Wu, 1998) have been
included. In any case, these have been prepared or aided by competent carcinologists so the names in-