carcinization

alternative carcinisation

1. BritishEnglishOxfordUSuncountableevolutionary theorybiologyThe convergent evolution of decapod crustaceans from forms dissimilar to true crabs into similar forms.First known use 1916

   It seems certain that carcinisation, return to a crab-like habitus, has evolved several times in the Anomura.

   2004, Gary C. B. Poore, “Anomura – Hermit Crabs, Porcelain Crabs and Squat Lobsters”, in Marine Decapod Crustacea of Southern Australia: A Guide to Identification, Collingwood, Vic.: CSIRO Publishing, →ISBN, page 215

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   [page 121] Porcellanopagurus is a quite independent case of the phenomenon which may be called "carcinization," and which consists essentially in a reduction of the abdomen of a macrurous crustacean, together with a depression and broadening of its cephalothorax, so that the animal assumes the general habit of body of a crab. [...] [page 125] It may be doubted whether the conditions of life play any part other than a purely permissive one in the realization of the tendency to carcinization. [...] The tendency to carcinization, emerging independently from time to time, has led in each case to different habits, but the obligation to the change must have lain always within, not without the obligation.

   1916, L[ancelot] A[lexander] Borradaile, Crustacea. Part II.—Porcellanopagurus: An Instance of Carcinization (British Museum (Natural History); British Antarctic (“Terra Nova”) Expedition, 1910, Natural History Report; Zoology; vol. III, no. 3), London: […] Trustees of the British Museum; […], →OCLC, pages 121 and 125

   [L]arval forms of the two groups [hermit crabs and king crabs] are remarkably alike; and carcinization (the evolution of crablike features) appears to have been a recurring theme in hermit crab evolution under ecological circumstances where the shells of gastropod snails are of limited availability (as for example in the deep sea).

   1994, John C[harles] Avise, “Species Phylogenies and Macroevolution”, in Molecular Markers, Natural History and Evolution, Boston, Mass.; Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, published 2001, →ISBN, part II (Application), page 309

   Presumably, to become a "true crab" requires that a reptant decapod undergo carcinization (Borradaile, 1916) or brachyurization (Števcic, 1971). Although the two terms appear here to be synonymous, we believe that not all authors who have employed "carcinization" or "brachyurization" have had quite the same phenomenon in mind. For example, Martin & Abele (1986) defined carcinization as the reduction and folding of the abdomen beneath the thorax, whereas Sluys (1992) used carcinization to mean the evolution of a crab-like appearance as in lithodids. To Blackstone (1989) hermit crabs became carcinized through broadening of the carapace and reduced shell-inhabiting. In this first component we address anomuran carcinization only from the perspective of adult morphology.

   1997 January, Patsy A. McLaughlin, Rafael Lemaitre, “Carcinization in the Anomura – Fact or Fiction?: I. Evidence from Adult Morphology”, in Contributions to Zoology, volume 67, number 2, Amsterdam: SPB Academic Publishing, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 Dec 2018, page 79, column 2

   Three independent carcinization events are identified (in Lithodidae, Porcellanidae, and Lomisidae). [...] Such a scenario may seem unlikely owing to the complex characters involved, but if carcinization has multiple, independent origins, then adaptation to dextral shell habitation may also be plausible.

   2009, Shane T[imothy] Ahyong, Kareen E. Schnabel, Elizabeth W. Maas, “Anomuran Phylogeny: New Insights from Molecular Data”, in Joel W. Martin, Keith A. Crandall, Darryl L. Felder, editors, Decapod Crustacean Phylogenetics (Crustacean Issues; 18), Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, published 15 January 2015, →ISBN, abstract, page 399

   Porcellanids are, after brachyuran crabs, the most successful decapod group to achieve a crab-like body form through carcinisation. Unlike brachyurans, porcellanids retained the ability to swim by flapping their abdomen, armed with a well developed tail fan. Here, we present an exceptional case of carcinisation, with the South-American porcellanid, Allopetrolisthes spinifrons, an obligatory commensal of the sea-anemone species Phymactis papillosa and Phymanthea pluvia.

   2010, Alexandra Hiller, Carlos Antonio Viviana, Bernd Werding, “Hypercarcinisation: An Evolutionary Novelty in the Commensal Porcellanid Allopetrolisthes spinifrons (Crustacea: Decapoda: Porcellanidae)”, in Nauplius^(https://web.archive.org/web/20120425232740/http://www.crustacea.org.br/artigos/728_25_18(1)_95-102_-_Hiller,_Viviani,_Werding.pdf), volume 18, number 1, São Paulo, Brazil: Sociedade Brasileira de Cancerologia, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 Apr 2012, abstract, page 95