Galapagos Species Database
The Galapagos Species Database shares the information about the species from our Natural History Collections.
Minuca galapagensis
Violinista de Galápagos, Galápagos fiddler crab
(U. galapagensis ) Found in supratidal and beach areas, lives in burrows on tidal mud flats
Domain
Eukaryota
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Arthropoda
Class
Malacostraca
Order
Decapoda
Suborder
Pleocyemata
Superfamily
Ocypodoidea
Family
Ocypodidae
Genus
Minuca
Species
galapagensis
Taxon category: Accepted
Syn.: Gelasimus macrodactylus H. Milne Edwards & Lucas, 1843, Uca (Minuca) galapagensis Rathbun, 1902, Uca (Minuca) macrodactyla H. Milne Edwards & Lucas, 1843, Uca galapagensis Rathbun, 1902 (Horton et al., 2021)
Origin: Native
Map of specimen collection localities or observation records for this species in our collections database.
Distribution: (U. galapagensis ) Floreana, Santa Cruz, Santiago, Genovesa, Baltra, Eden. And Costa Rica to Chile.
- Garth, J.S. (1991) Taxonomy, Distribution, and Ecology of Galápagos. Brachyura. In: James, M.J. (ed.): Galápagos Marine Invertebrates. Taxonomy, Biogeography, and Evolution in Darwin's Islands. Plenum Press. New York and London, p. 123-155.
- Horton, T. Horton, T., Kroh, A., Ahyong, S., Bailly, N., Boyko, C. B., Brandão, S. N., Gofas, S., Hooper, J. N. A., Hernandez, F., Holovachov, O., Mees, J., Molodtsova, T. N., Paulay, G., Decock, W., Dekeyzer, S., Poffyn, G., Vandepitte, L., Vanhoorne, B., Adlard, R., ... Zhao, Z. (2021) World Register of Marine Species. Available from https://www.marinespecies.org at VLIZ.
- Peck, S.B. (1994) Diversity and zoogeography of the non-oceanic Crustacea of the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador (excluding terrestrial Isopoda). Canadian Journal of Zoology 72: 54-69.
- Thurman, C. L., McNamara, J. C., Shih, H. T., & Capparelli, M. V. (2025) Fiddler crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda: Ocypodidae) from coastal Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands: Species descriptions and DNA barcodes. Ecology and Evolution, 15(1), e70646.
You are welcome to download and use the information found in this page, acknowledging its source.
This page should be cited as follows:
"Galapagos Species Database, Minuca galapagensis", dataZone. Charles Darwin Foundation, https://datazone.darwinfoundation.org/en/checklist/?species=19939. Accessed 4 November 2026.