Morphological Description of Megalopal Stages of Three Portunid Species (Decapoda, 2 Brachyura, Portunidae) from Indus Deltaic Area (northern-Arabian Sea)

The larvae of crustaceans, including those of brachyuran crabs, are a significant part of zooplanktonic communities constituting an ecologically important fraction of the pelagic communities. The present study describes taxonomic studies on three megalop stages of Portunus pelagicus (Linnaeus, 1758), Charybdis feriatus (Linnaeus, 1758) and Carcinus maenas (Linnaeus, 1758) belonging to family Portunidae collected from Indus deltaic creek system. Zooplankton samples were collected from three locations: Shahbandar 24°15’48.083’N, 67°90’15’333’E, Ketibandar 24°9’16.06’N, 67°27’7.64’E and Korangi creek 24°48’18.80’’N, 67°12’30.31’E during April to October 2018. No data available on taxonomic studies of portunid megalops upto species level from Paksitan, hence this is a first attempt to examine and to describe taxonomic features of megalops collected in the zooplankton samples. This study will contribute to the scientific knowledge on megalops taxonomy and identification as well as be useful for future research by taxonomists and biologists.