Portunidae

Portunidae is a family of crabs which contains the swimming crabs. Its members include well-known shoreline crabs such as the blue crab and velvet crab.

Portunidae

Hans Hillewaert · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
Also called
swimming crabPBDB
Sits inside
PortunoideaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
Life habit
semi-infaunalPBDB, for Portunoidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At least 158 million years on record.

The record covers at least 159 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 161.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 0 of 382 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 382 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 382 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 382 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 382 occurrencesEocene — about 36 of 382 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 27 of 382 occurrencesMiocene — about 209 of 382 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 36 of 382 occurrencesPleistocene — about 45 of 382 occurrences165–159 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences159–154 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences115–110 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences110–104 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences104–99 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences99–93 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences93–88 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences88–82 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences82–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–71 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences71–66 Mya — about 1 occurrence66–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–55 Mya — about 1 occurrence55–49 Mya — about 7 occurrences49–44 Mya — about 10 occurrences44–38 Mya — about 10 occurrences38–33 Mya — about 9 occurrences33–27 Mya — about 13 occurrences27–22 Mya — about 22 occurrences22–16 Mya — about 60 occurrences16–11 Mya — about 66 occurrences11–5.5 Mya — about 71 occurrences5.5–0 Mya — about 106 occurrences159 Mya11.7 ka165 Mya0 Mya

382 occurrences of Portunidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

382 occurrences

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

97 formations

Pirabas — 1.18°S, 47.22°WPirabas — 0.82°S, 46.96°WPirabas — 0.48°S, 48.17°WPirabas — 1.05°S, 47.16°WPirabas — 0.60°S, 47.31°WSandakan — 5.86°N, 118.04°ESandakan — 5.88°N, 118.06°ESandakan — 5.85°N, 118.07°ECercado — 19.47°N, 71.08°WCercado — 19.46°N, 71.19°WGatun — 9.28°N, 79.89°WGatun — 9.36°N, 79.84°WGurabo — 19.54°N, 71.29°WTalbot — 38.07°N, 76.36°WTalbot — 38.05°N, 76.52°WTalbot — 38.63°N, 76.29°WRio Banano — 9.91°N, 83.04°WRio Banano — 9.91°N, 83.09°WNdalithoni Limestone — 17.23°S, 178.95°ENdalithoni — 17.24°S, 178.94°WCape May — 39.94°N, 74.07°WBrasso — 10.51°N, 61.04°WBrasso — 10.39°N, 61.33°WDomanda — 30.87°N, 70.22°EDomanda — 30.13°N, 70.37°ERoda — 42.29°N, 0.55°ERoda — 42.44°N, 0.27°EJuana Diaz — 18.03°N, 66.93°WCayo Agua — 9.14°N, 82.01°WCayo Agua — 9.18°N, 82.05°WCayo Agua — 9.15°N, 82.02°WTuxpan — 20.47°N, 97.20°WTuxpan — 20.54°N, 97.46°WCastillo — 10.37°N, 70.05°WJuana Diaz — 18.02°N, 66.85°WLagunitas — 21.62°N, 79.53°WLagunitas — 21.78°N, 79.34°WCanimar — 23.02°N, 81.13°WCanimar — 22.98°N, 81.50°WChipola — 30.50°N, 85.20°WChipola — 30.47°N, 84.99°WDrazinda — 30.79°N, 70.44°EDrazinda — 31.62°N, 70.19°EPalos Verdes — 33.63°N, 117.90°WUpper Marine Molasse — 46.88°N, 7.53°E

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The named rock units Portunidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 73 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 117 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Portunidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Portunidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

2,231 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 201 sites for Portunidae, 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

113 references

Each of the 382 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. 101 further references are not listed. 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 Portunidae

Credit
Hans Hillewaert
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow 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 itPortunoidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rafinesque 1815