Gecarcoidea humei
| Author: | Wood-Mason, 1874 |
| Family: | Gecarcinidae |
| Synonyms: | Hylaeocarcinus humei |
| Vernaculars: | chicken crab |
| Photography: | Sebastian Napierkowski |
| Scientific data: | Tachai Island, Thailand |
| WoRMS: | URL |
The gecarcinid genus Gecarcoidea H. Milne Edwards, 1837 was for a long time represented by two species from the Indo-West Pacific – the widely distributed purple land crab, G. lalandii H. Milne Edwards, 1837, and the red crab endemic to Christmas Island, G. natalis (Pocock, 1889). One species, G. humei (Wood-Mason, 1874), described from the Nicobar Islands, has had a confused taxonomic history, but was treated as a junior synonym of G. lalandii by Türkay (1974) in his revision of the family. After study, using molecular as well as morphological characters, was confirmed that G. humei is a valid species. Gecarcoidea lalandii and G. humei have distinct non-overlapping distributions throughout much of their range, with G. lalandii occurring in most of South-east Asia and the West Pacific, while G. humei is known only from the eastern Indian Ocean.