Sesarmidae
The Sesarmidae are a family of crabs, previously included in the Grapsidae by many authors. Several species, namely in Geosesarma, Metopaulias, and Sesarma, are true terrestrial crabs. They do not need to return to the sea even for breeding.

Charles J. Sharp · 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- Sits inside
- GrapsoideaPBDB
- Diet
- detritivorePBDB, for Grapsoidea
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Grapsoidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca
Time the record covers
At least 15 million years on record.
The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
22 occurrences of Sesarmidae 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
22 occurrences- Miocene68%
- Pleistocene5%
- Holocene27%
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
3 formations
- Pirabas Formation2
- Jinseki Formation · Bihoku Group1
- La Quinta Formation1
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The named rock units Sesarmidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 18 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Sesarmidae and its relatives
MioceneWhere Sesarmidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
261 taxa- Acanthocarpus obscurus2 sites
- Callinectes paraensis2 sites
- Carcharhinus ackermannii2 sites
- Chlamys japericensis2 sites
- Clypeaster2 sites
- Cubitostrea2 sites
- Diodon2 sites
- Flabellum2 sites
- Galeocerdo mayumbensis2 sites
- Hemipristis serra2 sites
- Miohepatus amazonicus2 sites
- Myliobatidae2 sites
- Mytilus canoasensis vidali2 sites
- Naticarius canrena2 sites
- Nebrius2 sites
- Neopycnodonta2 sites
- Phyllacanthus2 sites
- Pitar2 sites
- Portunus haitensis2 sites
- Rhinoptera2 sites
- Rhizoprionodon2 sites
- Rhyzochlatrus vidalis2 sites
- Scylla costata2 sites
- Sesarma2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Sesarmidae, 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
6 references- Decapod crustaceans from the Miocene Kukinaga Group, Tanegashima Island, Kyushu, Japan11
- Notes on North American Crustacea6
- Localidades fossiliferas da Formacao Pirabas (Mioceno Inferior)2
- Crabs (Brachyura: Grapsoidea: Sesarmidae) as inclusions in Lower Miocene amber from Chiapas, Mexico1
- Terrestrial arthropods from the late Pleistocene of Jamaica – systematics, palaeoecology and taphonomy1
- Cenozoic Decapod Crustacea from Southwest Japan1
Each of the 22 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 content1
Picture of Sesarmidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Sesarmidae was found in Sketchfab.
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Sesarmidae”
- 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 itGrapsoidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Dana 1851)