Download PDF as one large file - AToL Decapoda

2
The checklist is derived from several sources.
First, it is based on a search of the literature,
and we have cited these sources in the text.
Additions were made based on our own
collections, those of Dr. Patsy McLaughlin,
and those housed in the following institutions:
the Smithsonian Institution's National
Museum of Natural History (SI-NMNH); the
State of Florida's Department of Natural
Resources Collections in St. Petersburg,
Florida; and the collections of Harbor Branch
Foundation's Indian River Coastal Zone
Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Keys were prepared from the literature
sources cited in the headings of the keys and
verified by us in so far as was possible.
This volume is intended as an identification
guide, and we wished to provide a standard
format for the illustrations. The illustrations
were therefore re-drawn from the sources
Methods and Materials
cited. We were able to locate source
illustrations for 722 of the 724 species,
although they varied in quality. We were
unable to locate specimens or illustrations of
the majid crab Collodes nudus and the
goneplacid crab Pilwnnoplax elata. We urge
our readers to verify their identifications using
the primary literature. The scaling is in a
standard format: a single line indicates that the
scale is in millimeters, and a double line
indicates centimeters; the number of units is
indicated by the number of tick marks shown
on the scale.
We made every effort to indicate all species
known from Florida's marine waters. The
checklist, however, is not complete for three
reasons: (1) we were working on a time
schedule and could not search indefinitely; (2)
there are numerous undescribed species that
are either currently being studied or in
museums, and we did not believe it
appropriate to include these; and (3) we are
sure that we simply missed some species.
Classification and Arrangement of Taxa and Illustrations
We have generally followed the classification
given in Bowman and Abele (1982) and the
arrangement in Abele and Felgenhauer (1982).
Within families we have arranged the genera
(and species within genera) alphabetically.
The illustrations are grouped by family and
follow the key to that family. They are
grouped by genera and within genera by the
sequence mat they occur in the key with the
following exception: Genera containing a
single species are grouped together at the end
of the family. This was done simply to save
space.
Taxonomic nomenclature follows the most
recent revision available unless general useage
dictates otherwise. This is an identification
guide not a revision.