Freshwater Crabs of the genus Thelphusula have been found across northern Borneo, although they are likely to be more widely distributed on the island, with the known distribution representing better sampling in Sarawak and Sabah (only a single species has been recorded from Kalimantan). The Crabs are nocturnal and favour swampy and well forested areas, making them hard to observe and collect, and there may well be more species, although many species are probably threatened by deforestation and other human intrusions into their environment.
In a paper published in the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology on 27 June 2014, Jongkar Grinang of the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation at Universiti Malaysia and Peter Ng of the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum at the National University of Singapore describe a new species of Thelphusula from eastern Sarawak.
The new species is named Thelphusula pueh, after the area where it was first collected, in the Lundu District of Sarawak. Thelphusula pueh is a 9.9-24.1 mm wide oval Crab, with a dark brown colouration. It was found living in and around rice fields in Lundu and Bau districts of western Sarawak, though this is unlikely to be its natural habitat.
Thelphusula pueh, female specimens from Kampung Sebako, Pueh, Lundu District, Sarawak. Grinang & Ng (2014).
See also…
Cave Crabs of the genus Orcovita are known from marine caves...
Christmas Island in the eastern Indian Ocean is noted for its distinctive Crab fauna, most notably the abundant Red Land Crab...
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