Metaxanthops acutus Serène, 1984

[Jn: Togari-usuha-ougigani]

(Fig. 3E)

Material examined. Haha-jima Is.—Imoto-jima I., diving site Sawaratsuki-ne (26°33′09″N, 142°12′09″E), 13–20 m, 1 ♂ (NSMT-Cr 31536; cb 7.7×cl 5.4 mm), 13-VII-2016, H. Komatsu leg.

Remarks. The good photographs are given by the original author (Serène, 1984, pl. 30 figs. D–E), Takeda (1989, pl. 1 fig. C; 2023, fig. 9B), Ng and Clark (2002, fig. 3b), Poupin et al. (2018, fig. 16E), and Maenosono (2022a, fig. 2). The carapace is dorsally flattened as a whole and shallowly divided into regions, with the protruded front and the thin, strongly toothed anterolateral margins. The male chelipeds are slightly heterochelous; the upper margin of the palm is strongly ridged through the length in both chelae, and the dark color of the immovable finger extends onto the lower distal half of the palm in both chelae. The color in life (Fig. 3E, present paper) of a male from the Ogasawara Islands is mottled with chocolate brown and white, similar to a male from Kagoshima Prefecture, southern Kyushu, Japan (Maenosono, 2022a, fig. 2A), but somewhat different from a male from Madagascar reported by Mendoza (2023), in which the carapace seems to be wholly creamy white.

Distribution. Known from the western Indian Ocean (Madagascar and the Comoro Is.) and the South and West Pacific (New Caledonia, the Palau Islands, the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, and southern Kyushu, Japan).