New Species, Cladistic Relationships, and Biogeography of the Genus Fredius (Decapoda: Brachyura: Pseudothelphusidae) From South America

The taxonomy of the genus Fredius Pretzmann, 1967, is reviewed, and new taxa are described: Fredius adpressus, F. adpressus piaroensis, F. platyacanthus, and F. estevisi siapensis. The 8 species of this genus inhabit 4 major basins of different geological age in northern South America. The Orinoco basin is the oldest, followed by the Essequibo-Cuyuni basin. The lower Amazon basin, formed from Tertiary to Holocene by alluvionic deposition, is younger than these two. The Atlantic area, formed mainly by marine regressions, is the youngest. The phylogenetic relationships within Fredius, studied by means of a cladistic analysis, were compared with the relationships of these areas using Brooks parsimony analysis. The phylogenetic data fully agree with the area cladogram. The position of the ancestors within the area cladogram shows that most of them were present in a hypothetical major basin comprising the present Orinoco, Essequibo, and Cuyuni rivers, and that much of the evolution of the group occurred there. There is some ambiguity about the possible origin of 2 widespread species. The most parsimonious explanation for one of them is that it originated in the Atlantic drainage and then dispersed into the lower Amazon basin.