Macrophthalmus
Macrophthalmus is a genus of crabs which are widespread across the Indo-Pacific. It contains the following species : Species in this genus are often referred to as sentinel crabs.

ISAKA Yoji ( cory ) [ Recent works / Other works ] · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- MacrophthalminaePBDB
- Diet
- detritivorePBDB, for Ocypodoidea
- Life habit
- infaunalPBDB, for Ocypodoidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca
Time the record covers
At least 5.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
26 occurrences of Macrophthalmus on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
26 occurrences- Miocene46%
- Pliocene8%
- Pleistocene35%
- Holocene12%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
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The named rock units Macrophthalmus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
43 taxa- Podophthalmus vigil3 sites
- Galene bispinosa2 sites
- Ammonia1 site
- Amussiopecten praesignis1 site
- Anomalifrons lightana1 site
- Anomalocardia1 site
- Bentharca1 site
- Cancellaria1 site
- Carcinoplacoides flottei1 site
- Charybdis1 site
- Charybdis annulata1 site
- Charybdis feriata1 site
- Charybdis shihseihi1 site
- Cryptolutea litoralis1 site
- Cyclodius ungulatus1 site
- Elphidium1 site
- Eucrate1 site
- Florilus1 site
- Galene obscura1 site
- Jania1 site
- Lithoporella melobesioides1 site
- Macropthalmus1 site
- Macropthalmus guamensis1 site
- Membranipora1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Macrophthalmus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
12 references- Decapod crustaceans from the Miocene Kukinaga Group, Tanegashima Island, Kyushu, Japan11
- Decapod Crustacea from the Ryukyu Group (Pleistocene) of Okinawa-jima, Japan2
- Decapod Crustacea from the Tyukyu Group (Pleistocene) of Okinawa-jima, Japan2
- Cenozoic Decapod Crustacea from Southwest Japan2
- On the Early Holocene crab (Brachyura) fauna of Moyang Estuary, Guangdong Province. China2
- Holocene fossil crabs (Macrophthalmus (Venitus) latreillei Desmarest, 1832) from Zhejiang, China1
- Miocene and Pleistocene Crabs (Crustacea, Decapoda) from Sabah and Sarawak1
- Holocene Macrophthalmus (Venitus) latreillei crabs from Trat Province: indicators of paleoshoreline1
- Decapod crustaceans from the Katsuta Group (middle Miocene) of Okayama Prefecture, Japan1
- Neogene crabs from Brunei, Sabah, and Sarawak1
- Studies on Quaternary fossil crabs and associated faunas from Hainan Island, southern China1
- Fossil crabs from Guam1
Each of the 26 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Macrophthalmus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- ISAKA Yoji ( cory ) [ Recent works / Other works ]
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMacrophthalminae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1823