MANILA, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Philippine biologists have claimed to have discovered a new species of freshwater crab in a lake in Mindanao island in the southern Philippines, local news media has reported.
Jose C.E. Mendoza, one of the scientists behind the discovery, told GMA News Online that the newly discovered species of crabs have been found in Seloton village, Lake Sebu in South Cotabato province by accident.
"My co-author purchased it from a vendor who was selling crabs and freshwater fish for food," he said, referring to Emerson Y. Sy.
Mendoza works as a lecturer at the National University of Singapore, while his co-author Sy is based in the Philippine Center for Terrestrial and Aquatic Research (PCTAR).
Mendoza said, "Vendors and markets, especially in remote or understudied area, are one of the first places we look when we survey the biodiversity of those areas...how do people interact with or utilize this biodiversity?"
He said an abstract of their discovery will be published in the Michael Türkay Memorial Issue of Crustaceana, a leading journal on crustacean research.
He said the new crab species is named Sundathelphusa miguelito in honor of Türkay as a carcinologist or a scientist who studies crustaceans from the Senckenberg Museum and Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany.
