Freshwater Crabs of the genus Tiwaripotamon are found across southern China and Northern Vietnam. They have flattened bodies and elongate legs, and are commonly found in or close to limestone cave systems, though they lack specialist adaptations to cave-dwelling, and their natural history is not well inderstood.
In a paper published in the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology on 5 August 2016, Van Tu Do of the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hsi-Te Shih of the Department of Life Science at the National Chung Hsing University and Chao Huang of the Palaeontology, Geobiology and Earth Archives Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, the Australian Museum and the School of Life Sciences at Sun Yat-sen University, describe a new species of Tiwaripotamon from Cao Bang Province in northern Vietnam and Guangxi Province in southwest China.
The new species is named Tiwaripotamon pluviosum, meaning 'rainy', as the Crabs were active during the rainy season. The species was found at two sites, near Coong Village in Ha Lang District of Cao Bang Province, and in the Nonggang Natural Reserve in Chongzuo City in Guangxi Province. Members of this species are reddish brown, purple or orange, and about 1.3 times as wide as they are long, with the largest specimen examined measuring 39.8 × 28.8 mm,
Specimen of Tiwaripotamori pluviosum in the Nonggang Natural Reserve in Guangxi Province. Heng-Wei He in Do et al. (2016).
This species was found to be active in limestone mountains during the rainy season, though it was not restricted to rocky environments, and was often found climbing on plants at night, as high as a meter above the ground.
Specimen of Tiwaripotamori pluviosum in the Nonggang Natural Reserve in Guangxi Province. Heng-Wei He in Do et al. (2016).
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