Indian Journal of Geo Marine Sciences Vol. 47 (09), September 2018, pp. 1782-1786 Fresh record of the moon crab Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781) (Crustacea: Decapoda: Matutidae) from the Odisha coast after a century Durga Prasad Behera 1 , Lakshman Nayak 1 & Sunil Kumar Sahu 2,3* 1 P.G. Department of Marine Sciences, Berhampur University, India -760 007 2 School of Life Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China – 510 275 3 BGI-Research, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China – 518 083 * [Email: sunilks@mail.sysu.edu.cn] Received 29 December 2016; revised 20 April 2017 The recurrence of common moon crab Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781) was recorded from near shore waters of Gopalpur port of the Ganjam district, Odisha after a century. Totally ten specimens were collected which comprised of 5 males and 5 females. Matuta victor was first reported in Chilika Lake during 1915. [Keywords: Recurrence; Crab; Matuta victor; Odisha; Super cyclone] Introduction Considering the ecological and the habitat point of view the crabs represents a most significant crustacean resource in offshore trawling 1-2 . The coastal and offshore water of Odisha forms a rich and diverse habitat for many pelagic and demersal fishery resources including crab. Brachyuran crabs are among the most species-rich animal groups as studied by different authors 3-4 . In India Venkataraman and Wafar 5 reported 705 brachyuran crab species comprising 28 families and 270 genera. Later Pillai and Thirumilu reported 991 species of brachyuran crabs 6 . Significant information is available on the brachyuran fauna of India and are well explain along the east 7-11 and the west coast 12-17 of India. In Indian water, Calapidae family was first studied by Dana (1852) comprehending 16 genera, among them seven were fossils and 33 species has been reported which are from Indo-west pacific region 18 . Alcock reported 13 species of ocypodids from Andaman and Nicobar Islands 19 . In Odisha, the first study on crab diversity was conducted by Zoological Survey of India in Chilika Lake during 1914-1924 20 . The review was undertaken during 1985-1987 and 28 species of crab were reported 21 . Mahapatra et al. 22 made an extensive survey and recorded 35 species representing 9 families comprising 8 species from Portunidae, 9 species (Grapsidae), 10 (Ocypodidae), 2 (Leucosiidae and Calappidae) and 1 species each from Majidae, Hymenosomatidae, Gecarcinidae, Xanthidae family from Chilika lagoon. Regarding information on crab diversity along south Odisha, Rath and Devroy reported 22 species from 16 genera and 4 families in Banshadhara, Nagabali and Bahuda estuary 23-24. The most attractive crabs in the tropical and subtropical area belong to family Calapidae and Mututidae which is popularly known as shame faces or moon crabs 25 . On Odisha coast, the moon crab Matuta victor of Mututidae family was first recorded in Chilika lake during March 1914 at outer channel 20 . After that, no description or occurrence record exists in the literature regarding Matuta victor in the Odisha. Here we made a survey on the occurrence and distribution of this species, and reports the recurrence of Matuta victor after a century, along Gopalpur port coastal water, East coast of India after super cyclone Huduhud. Materials and Methods During a regular survey made by fiber fishing boat on nearshore waters of Gopalpur port, Odisha (19 0 16' 4" N and 84 0 54'3"E) on 4 th November 2014, ten species of moon crab both male and female were collected using the fishing net (Fig. 1). Morphometric characters (Body weight, Length and Width of Carapace, Abdominal length and width, number of lateral spine and Cheleped (Length of Claw, Dactylus length, Merus length and carpus length) as well as walking leg characters were recorded for identification. Immediate preservation was made in 10% formalin and kept in Department of Marine science, Berhampur University.