New records of two species of Acanthocarpus Stimpson, 1871 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Calappidae) in northeastern Brazil

The gladiator box crab of the genus Acanthocarpus Stimpson, 1871 has benthonic habits, occurring in continental shelf on gravel or muddy substrates with occurrence in all oceans, especially between 20-522 m depth. In this paper we report the occurrence of Acanthocarpus alexandri Stimpson, 1871 and A. bispinosus A. Milne-Edwards, 1880 from the Potiguar Basin (Rio Grande do Norte), located in the Brazilian northeast and increase the knowledge about the distributional aspects of this species from Brazilian coast.