Meeting Abstract

33.6  Friday, Jan. 4  New morphological evidence for paraphyly of podotreme Brachyura SCHOLTZ, Gerhard*; MCLAY, Colin; Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin; University of Canterbury, Christchurch gerhard.scholtz@rz.hu-berlin.de

Our view on the phylogeny of brachyuran crabs has been dramatically changed by the seminal work of Guinot in the late 1970s. Mainly based on the apomorphic sternal position of the gonopores she established a large monophyletic group of brachyurans which was later called Eubrachyura. The remaining �primitive� crabs were called by her Podotremata based on the coxal position of the gonopores in both sexes. Since this is apparently a plesiomorphic character there is reason for the assumption that the Podotremata does not form a monophyletic group, i.e. some of its subgroups are more closely related to Eubrachyura. Recent cladistic analyses based on foregut characters and molecular data showed no support for a clade Podotremata but with different sister-group relationships of the subtaxa. Here we present new morphological data from the skeleton, the eyes, and limbs etc. that also suggest paraphyletic podotreme crabs. In addition, the monophyly of the Brachyura is discussed.