As currently understood, the crustacean infraorder Brachyura comprises thousands of "true" crabs. Collectively, these crabs have a distribution that spans the globe. They can be found in a diversity of freshwater and marine environments. Those under study as part of our NSF-funded systematics research are members of the families Carpiliidae and Trapeziidae. Both of these groups are associated with coral reefs.

Brachyuran crabs belong to the phylum Arthropoda, the most diverse group of Metazoa (multicellular animals) on Earth. More information

Follow the link to find details of some of the protocols used to obtain and analyze genetic data.

Click below to open a page with links to the sites of other people with on-going research on the systematic of brachyuran crabs.

Research on the systematics of the xanthid crabs (Infraorder Brachyura) is sponsored by the PEET program of the National Science Foundation.

General crab morphology

New insights on the biology of xanthid crabs come primarily from first-hand study of the animals. The specimens studied are both from collections of museums worldwide and those collected from our own fieldwork. To date, my fieldwork has included study on and around the islands of Moorea, Fiji, and Guam.

This database includes taxonomic information on the nominal species of Trapeziidae. The information includes not only the binomen but the names of the describing authors and synonymies.

Using the collections database, you can view the holdings of carpiliid and trapeziid crab specimens at the following museums:

National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian)

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

The Natural History Museum (London)

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris)

The reference database includes citations related to all aspects of research on the infraorder Brachyura. The Brachyura are those crustaceans known as the "true" crabs. Most of the papers included here are those on the xanthid crabs associated with coral reefs.

Go to Reference Database