Xanthidae

Xanthidae is a family of crabs known as gorilla crabs, mud crabs, pebble crabs or rubble crabs. Xanthid crabs are often brightly coloured and are highly poisonous, containing toxins which are not destroyed by cooking and for which no antidote is known. The toxins are similar to the tetrodotoxin and saxitoxin produced by puffer fish, and may be produced by bacteria in the genus Vibrio living in symbiosis with the crabs, mostly V. alginolyticus and V. parahaemolyticus.

Xanthidae

George Chernilevsky · Public Domain · 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
stone crabPBDB
Sits inside
XanthoideaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
Life habit
infaunalPBDB, for Xanthoidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At least 125 million years on record.

The record covers at least 125.77 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 132.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 3 of 249 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 4 of 249 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 4 of 249 occurrencesEocene — about 52 of 249 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 46 of 249 occurrencesMiocene — about 73 of 249 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 26 of 249 occurrencesPleistocene — about 22 of 249 occurrences135–131 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 1 occurrence126–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences108–104 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences104–99 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences77–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72–68 Mya — about 3 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 3 occurrences63–59 Mya — about 2 occurrences59–54 Mya — about 6 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 12 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 10 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 9 occurrences41–36 Mya — about 9 occurrences36–32 Mya — about 17 occurrences32–27 Mya — about 19 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 18 occurrences23–18 Mya — about 10 occurrences18–14 Mya — about 18 occurrences14–9.0 Mya — about 31 occurrences9.0–4.5 Mya — about 20 occurrences4.5–0 Mya — about 60 occurrences125.77 Mya11.7 ka135 Mya0 Mya

249 occurrences of Xanthidae 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

249 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°ENdalithoni Limestone — 17.23°S, 178.95°EMegami — 34.70°N, 128.18°ENdalithoni — 17.24°S, 178.94°WMontpelier — 18.47°N, 77.58°WMoin — 9.99°N, 83.03°WDiscovery Point — 29.00°N, 118.23°WDiscovery Point — 29.10°N, 118.25°WLeitha Limestone — 47.83°N, 16.48°EPalos Verdes Sand — 33.99°N, 118.45°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.88°WMandog — 7.07°N, 125.57°EPinczow — 50.47°N, 20.80°EUpper Bhuban — 23.73°N, 92.25°EUpper Bhuban — 23.00°N, 93.00°EPrairie Bluff — 32.05°N, 86.78°WClayton — 32.05°N, 86.78°WGramame — 7.25°S, 34.80°WUpper Coralline Limestone — 35.93°N, 14.33°EUpper Coralline Limestone — 35.92°N, 14.38°EFutuna — 18.44°S, 178.48°WFutuna — 18.96°S, 178.95°WEscudo de Veraguas — 9.10°N, 81.56°WDomanda — 29.97°N, 70.12°EFutuna Limestone — 18.45°S, 178.48°EBaucina — 37.82°N, 12.80°EMarne di Priabona — 45.50°N, 11.75°EMokattam — 28.73°N, 30.92°ESooke — 48.78°N, 125.21°W

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The named rock units Xanthidae 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. 151 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Xanthidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Xanthidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

2,222 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 100 sites for Xanthidae, 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

72 references

Each of the 249 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. 60 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 content1

Picture of Xanthidae

Credit
George Chernilevsky
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Xanthidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itXanthoidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. MacLeay 1838