Natural History Museum
Abstract. Percy William Bassett-Smith, Surgeon-Naturalist of the Royal Navy aboard HMS Penguin in 1892, collected
several crustaceans from the Macclesfield Bank, South China Sea. This material was donated to the British Museum
(Natural History) by the Lords of the Admiralty and registered under the accession number “(18)92.8.28”. Among
this material were several crab specimens examined by Dutch carcinologist, Alida Margaretha Buitendijk, who
intended to describe them as new. There are, however, no publications on record to show that these crabs were
ever formally described. The five female specimens were recently re-examined and still considered to be new
to science, and are here formally described. Medaeus alidae, new species, is most similar to its congeners, M.
aztec Davie, 1997 and M. danielita Mendoza & Ng, 2010, in the general form of the carapace and ambulatory
legs, but differs primarily in the degree of granulation of the carapace and pereiopods, as well as in other minor
morphological features. To date, it is the sixth species to be assigned to Medaeus. For clarity, a key to all the
species of Medaeus is provided.
Key words. Decapoda, Xanthidae, Macclesfield Bank, Percy William Bassett-Smith, HMS Penguin, Alida Margaretha Buitendijk
Read article here: RBZ-2025-0010
