Potamonautidae is a family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of freshwater crab

Freshwater crab

There are around 1,300 species of freshwater crabs, distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics, divided among eight families. They show direct development and maternal care of a small number of offspring, in contrast to marine crabs which release thousands of planktonic larvae. This limits...

s endemic to tropical

Tropics

The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately  N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at  S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...

 parts of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and adjacent islands, including Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

, the Seychelles

Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....

, Zanzibar

Zanzibar

Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

, Mafia

Mafia Island

Mafia Island is part of the Tanzanian Spice Islands, together with Unguja and Pemba. As one of the six districts of the Pwani Region, Mafia Island is governed from the mainland, not from the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar, of which it has never been considered to be a part.According to the...

, Pemba, Bioko

Bioko

Bioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...

, São Tomé

São Tomé Island

São Tomé Island, at , is the largest island of São Tomé and Príncipe and is home in 2009 to about 157,000 or 96% of the nation's population. This island and smaller nearby islets make up São Tomé Province, which is divided into six districts. The main island is located 2 km north of the...

, Príncipe

Príncipe

Príncipe is the northern and smaller of the two major islands of the country of São Tomé and Príncipe lying off the west coast of Africa. It has an area of 136 km² and a population of approximately 5,000. The island is a heavily eroded volcano over three million years old, surrounded by other...

 and Sherbro Island

Sherbro Island

Sherbro Island, is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, located in Bonthe District off the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. The Sherbro make up by far the largest ethnic group in the island....

. It comprises 18 extant genera

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 and 138 extant species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

. Fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 remains dating from the Late Miocene

Late Miocene

The Late Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch....

 period have been attributed to the family Potamonautidae.

It comprises the following subfamilies and genera:

Deckeniinae Ortmann, 1897

• Deckenia
  Deckenia (crab)
  Deckenia is a genus of freshwater crabs from East Africa, in the family Potamonautidae, or sometimes in a family of its own, Deckeniidae. The genus was named by Hilgendorf after Karl Klaus von der Decken who collected the first examples during his expeditions to Africa...
  
  Hilgendorf, 1869
• Seychellum
  Seychellum
  Seychellum alluaudi is a species of freshwater crab endemic to the Seychelles. It lives in rainforest streams on the granitic high islands, where it may be abundant. It grows to a carapace width of around , and is almost quadrangular in outline...
  
  Ng, Števčić & Pretzmann, 1995

Hydrothelphusinae Bott, 1955

• Afrithelphusa
  Afrithelphusa
  Afrithelphusa is a genus of freshwater crabs in the family Potamonautidae. It contains four species, all of which were formerly listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature...
  
  Bott, 1969
• Boreas Cumberlidge & von Sternberg, 2002
• Globonautes
  Globonautes
  Globonautes macropus is a species of crab in the family Potamonautidae, the only species in the genus Globonautes. It is found in Guinea and Liberia and presumably in Sierra Leone, and is listed as an endangered species on the IUCN Red List. It lives in tree hollows filled with water, in...
  
  Bott, 1959
• Hydrothelphusa A. Milne-Edwards, 1872
• Louisea
  Louisea
  Louisea is a genus of freshwater crab in the family Potamonautidae, containing two species, Louisea balssi and Louisea edeaensis. Both species are endemic to Cameroon and listed as endangered species on the IUCN Red List....
  
  Cumberlidge, 1994
• Madagapotamon Bott, 1965
• Malagasya Cumberlidge & von Sternberg, 2002
• Marojejy Cumberlidge, Boyko & Harvey, 2002
• Skelosophusa Ng & Takeda, 1994

Potamonautinae Bott, 1970

• Erimetopus Rathbun, 1894
• Foza Dai & Bo, 1994
• Liberonautes Bott, 1955
• Platythelphusa
  Platythelphusa
  Platythelphusa is a genus of freshwater crabs endemic to Lake Tanganyika. It has been placed in a number of families, including a monotypic family, Platythelphusidae, as well as Potamidae and its current position in the Potamonautidae, and has also been treated as a subgenus of Potamonautes...
  
  A. Milne-Edwards, 1887
• Potamonautes
  Potamonautes
  Potamonautes is a genus of freshwater crabs in the family Potamonautidae. It contains the following species:*Potamonautes adeleae Bott, 1968*Potamonautes alluaudi *Potamonautes aloysiisabaudiae...
  
  MacLeay, 1838
• Potamonemus Cumberlidge & P. F. Clark, 1992
• Sudanonautes Bott, 1955
• Tanzanonautes
  Tanzanonautes
  Tanzanonautes tuerkayi is a species of fossil freshwater crab from Tanzania, the only species in the genus Tanzanonautes. It is the oldest known freshwater crab, and probably dates from the Oligocene; the next oldest specimens are from the Miocene...
  
  † Feldmann et al., 2007