#gonopod

The gonopodium is a unique structure which is similar to a secondary pair of arms beneath the usual pair. The joints and musculature are of roughly equivalent anatomy to the arms and shoulders, though smaller in size and slightly lower down the ribcage.

However, distally to the carpals the musculoskeletal structures more closely resemble the structure of the foot. Furthermore, the palmar skin of the gonopodial manus is soft and highly sensitive, and functions as an erogenous zone.

Lobothelphusa woodmasoni (Rathbun, 1905) is a freshwater crab, restricted mainly to the Southeast Asian countries. Currently, there are two completely contradictory descriptions of the male gonopod and both the authors hardly gave any evidence whether ‘type specimen’ housed at Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata was compared or not. This creates perplexity on the taxonomic identity of the species whereas comparison of gonopods with published data as well as voucher specimen is the only way to identify an adult male specimen. Therefore, to provide some clarity, this paper reviews the taxonomical status of L. woodmasoni from Northeast India by comparing the samples from two sites of occurrences (i.e. Sivasagar and Harmuti, Assam) with its ‘type specimen’. The finding offers the detailed anatomical features of the female abdomen and gonopores for the first time that may be used as tool for species discrimination and thereby re-evaluates the structure of male gonopods and other accessory characters for proper taxonomic enumeration of the species.