First record of Albunea occulta (Boyko) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Albuneidae) from the Andaman Islands, India.

The anomuran crabs of the family Albuneidae Stimpson, 1858 are specialized forms, living buried in sand. Because of their preferred habitat, they are very rarely encountered, and thus have been poorly studied in general (Osawa & Fujita 2012). They are commonly called “Sand crabs” (Boyko 2002). Worldwide, the Albuneidae family currently includes 48 species belonging to nine genera (Boyko & McLaughlin 2010). Among these species, the present study reported Albunea occulta Boyko, 2002 as new record to Indian coastal regions particularly from Andaman Islands. Albunea specimens were collected during low tide in October 2013 from the intertidal region of Burmanallah (11°33.261'N, 92°43.963’E), and in April 2014 from Corbyn’s Cove (11°38.502’N, 92°44.801’E), South Andaman (Fig. 1). The animals were hand collected and immediately transferred to polythene bag. The sample was preserved in 5% formalin and taken to the laboratory for further analysis. Identification was based on the morphological characters using standard taxonomic keys (Boyko 2002; Osawa et al. 2010). The specimens were deposited to the Zoological Survey of India, Andaman Nicobar Regional Centre, Port Blair (ZSI / ANRC Reg. No. 10283 and 10659). Terminology and abbreviations used in the present study, following Boyko (2002) and Osawa et al. (2010), are given below: carapace length (cl), carapace width (cw), ocular peduncles (OP), carapace grooves (CG). All dimensions are presented in millimeters (mm). Carapace length was measured from the midpoint of the anterior margin to the midpoint of the posterior concavity; it indicates of specimen size in most cases. Carapace width is measured near to CG4, excluding spines.