Portunus

Portunus is a genus of crabs which includes several important species for fisheries, such as the blue swimming crab and the Gazami crab. Other species, such as the three-spotted crab are caught as bycatch.

Portunus

Philippe Guillaume · CC BY 2.0 · 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
PortuninaePBDB
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 115 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 115 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 115 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 115 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 115 occurrencesEocene — about 13 of 115 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 6 of 115 occurrencesMiocene — about 75 of 115 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 7 of 115 occurrencesPleistocene — about 4 of 115 occurrences165–159 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences159–154 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–49 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences49–44 Mya — about 4 occurrences44–38 Mya — about 5 occurrences38–33 Mya — about 3 occurrences33–27 Mya — about 2 occurrences27–22 Mya — about 7 occurrences22–16 Mya — about 21 occurrences16–11 Mya — about 24 occurrences11–5.5 Mya — about 27 occurrences5.5–0 Mya — about 20 occurrences159 Mya11.7 ka165 Mya0 Mya

115 occurrences of Portunus 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

115 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

39 formations

Sandakan — 5.86°N, 118.04°ESandakan — 5.88°N, 118.06°ESandakan — 5.85°N, 118.07°EPirabas — 1.18°S, 47.22°WPirabas — 0.48°S, 48.17°WPirabas — 1.05°S, 47.16°WPirabas — 0.60°S, 47.31°WCercado — 19.47°N, 71.08°WDomanda — 30.87°N, 70.22°EDomanda — 30.13°N, 70.37°EBrasso — 10.51°N, 61.04°WBrasso — 10.39°N, 61.33°WDrazinda — 30.79°N, 70.44°EDrazinda — 31.62°N, 70.19°ETuxpan — 20.47°N, 97.20°WTuxpan — 20.54°N, 97.46°WCastillo — 10.37°N, 70.05°WYanigua — 18.87°N, 69.35°WYanigua — 18.83°N, 69.68°WThomonde — 19.81°N, 72.80°WThomonde — 18.99°N, 71.95°WUpper Marine Molasse — 46.88°N, 7.53°ECantaure — 11.94°N, 70.02°WKopili Shale — 25.30°N, 90.63°EJuana Diaz — 18.02°N, 66.85°WLagunitas — 21.62°N, 79.53°WNdalithoni Limestone — 17.23°S, 178.95°EAvon Park — 29.01°N, 82.65°WMazantic Shale — 16.00°N, 92.00°WNdalithoni — 17.24°S, 178.94°WSan Pedro — 32.67°N, 117.14°WChipola — 30.50°N, 85.20°WTampa — 30.57°N, 84.96°WMiri — 4.87°N, 114.81°EMiri — 4.15°N, 113.85°E

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The named rock units Portunus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 29 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Portunus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Portunus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

1,295 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 83 sites for Portunus, 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

49 references

Each of the 115 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. 37 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 Portunus

Credit
Philippe Guillaume
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itPortuninae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Weber 1795