Clibanarius virescens Krauss 1843

Clibanarius virescens (Krauss, 1843)

(Fig. 3, 4)

Pagurus virescens Krauss, 1843: 56, pl. 4, fig. 3 [type locality: South Africa].

Clibanarius aequabilis.—Stebbing, 1920: 258 (not Clibanarius aequabilis Dana, 1851).? Calcinus astathes Stebbing, 1924: 239, pI. 2 [type locality: South Africa].

Clibanarius philippinensis Yap-Chiongco, in Estampador, 1937: 501.

Clibanarius sachalinicus Kobjakova, 1955: 241: fig. 7 [type locality: south-eastern Sakhalin; probably mislabeling].

Material examined. Holotype female (ZIN №45674), Okhotsk Sea, Mordvinova Bay, st. 57 (179-1948) (without exact coordinates), depth 52 meters, coll by r/v ‘Toporok” during Kuril-Sakhalin Expedition, 2 Sept 1947.

Remarks. The holotype specimen of Clibanarius sachalinicus Kobjakova, 1955 (Figs. 3, 4) is morphologically identical to Clibanarius virescens (Krauss, 1843). Thus, C. sachalinicus should be considered as a junior synonym of C. virescens.

It was also concluded by McLaughlin (1996) than type specimens of Calcinus astathes Stebbing, 1924 (also usually reported as a junior synonym of C. virescens) housed in The Natural History Museum (London), were not conspecific with truly C. virescens and indicated Clibanarius astathes as a valid species (Hogarth et al, 1998).

Distribution. Widely distributed tropical Indo-Pacific species known from S. Arabia, South and East Africa to Japan, the Ellice Islands, Guam and Fiji (Haig& Ball 1988, Lewinsohn 1982); reported from Korean waters (Jung & Kim, 2015).The presence of C. virescens, actually subtropical or even tropical species, in sublittoral of cold water Mordvinova Bay of Sakhalin Island (46°50′4″ N 143°19′ 18″E) is questionable. The measured average summer temperature (May–September) of surface water is about 5–9C, then the Bay is covered with ice during the winter time; water temperature on the depth 40–50 meters is more constant being about 3–5C. Probably, in the case with locality of holotype of C. sachalinicus it was a mislabeling of the sample because Zinaida I. Kobjakova also worked in Japan and Korea and possibly had in her collections material on shallow water hermit crabs from these localities. The tropical hermit crab C. virescens can actually present in north-eastern part of the Sea of Japan in the areas (for example, around north Hokkaido) influenced by Kuroshio Current that usually brings tropical species onto colder waters (for example, Marin et al, 2012a, b), but Mordvinova Bay has never been influenced by Kuroshio Current situated quite far from its to northern stream.