Meaning of carcinization | Babel Free

Definitions

The convergent evolution of decapod crustaceans from forms dissimilar to true crabs into similar forms.

British, English, Oxford, US, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“[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.”

“[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).”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Porcelain crabs (Galatheoidea: Porcellanidae) and the hairy stone crab (Lomisoidea: Lomisidae) are also highly carcinised. They represent two additional independent instances of carcinisation within the Anomura, although their derivation has received much less attention than that of the king crabs.”

CEFR level