| Abstract: | The complete larval development of the shallow-water Caribbean porcellanid crab, Petrolisthes politus (Gray, 1831), is described and illustrated from specimens reared in the laboratory. Petrolisthes politus hatches as a prezoea, which persist for less than 90 minutes, and then molts through two subsequent zoeal stages, which are completed in 6 to 7 and 14 to 16 days, respectively, before the megalopal stage is reached. From a total of about 2000 zoeae that were cultured, only two reached the megalopal stage. The two megalopae survived for up to 5 days but did not molt to the first crab stage. The zoeae of P. politus are compared with those of Petrolisthes rufescens (Heller, 1861), Petrolisthes lamarckii (Leach, 1820), Petrolisthes carinipes (Heller, 1861), Petrolisthes coccineus (Owen 1839) and Petrolisthes pubescens (Stimpson, 1858), which were hitherto the only species having bifid lateral spines on the telson of the first zoeal stage. |
