Notes on the Localities, Habitats, Biology, colour and vernacular names of new Guinea Freshwater Crabs (Crustacea Decapoda, Sundathelphusidae)

From October 1954 to May 1955 three staff members of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (Dr. L. D. Brongersma, Dr. M. Boeseman and myself) visited Netherlands New Guinea (at present officially named West Irian, and part of Indonesia) with the object to make zoological collections there and to study the fauna of this most interesting area. Dr. Boeseman as an ichthyologist, and myself as a carcinologist, devoted a large part of our available time to the freshwater fauna. Although most of Dr. Boeseman's attention was given to fishes, and my main interest was with macrurous Decapoda, we brought together fair collections of fresh water crabs, and both of us made field notes on these collections. The late Dr. Richard Bott 1) of the Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt am Main, was so kind as to undertake the systematic study of this material and of other New Guinea fresh water crabs held by the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historic A report on them by Dr. Bott is published simultaneously with the present note. Dr. Bott preferred not to include in his paper the field notes on our material in the rather elaborate way in which I had prepared these for him, and after ample discussion we decided that I should publish these notes separately in the present paper. These field notes contain mainly descriptions of localities and habitats where the crabs were collected by us; in several instances also descriptions of the colour and colour patterns of the living animals were made, as well as observations on their biology; finally, of a number of species the names given to them by the natives were noted. Not only Dr. Boeseman's and my own field notes are given here, but, if available, also those made by the collectors of the other New Guinea fresh water crabs of the Leiden Museum