Morphological and Molecular Evidence for the Identity of Two Land Hermit Crabs De Man, 1902 and Nakasone, 1988 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Anomura: Coenobitidae).

Two species of land hermit crabs, De Man, 1902 and Nakasone, 1988 were described based on female specimens from Maluku, Indonesia and specimens from Cebu, the Philippines, respectively. However, no confirmed records of either species have been reported since their original descriptions. In this study, we examined specimens with typical morphological characters of from Papua New Guinea and from the Philippines and Indonesia, further supported by the analyses of the DNA barcoding marker, cytochrome oxidase subunit I ().

Peripatric speciation drives diversification and distributional pattern of reef hermit crabs (Decapoda: Diogenidae: Calcinus).

The diversity on coral reefs has long captivated observers. We examine the mechanisms of speciation, role of ecology in speciation, and patterns of species distribution in a typical reef-associated clade-the diverse and colorful Calcinus hermit crabs-to address the origin of tropical marine diversity. We sequenced COI, 16S, and H3 gene regions for approximately 90% of 56 putative species, including nine undescribed, "cryptic" taxa, and mapped their distributions.