LAUSR

Three males and two females of the invasive blue swimming crab, Portunus segnis , were captured by trammel net in October 2024 at a depth of approximately 2 meters near the southern mouth of the Stagnone lagoon in western Sicily (Italy). Given the current distribution of the species in the Mediterranean and the significance of the Strait of Sicily as a biogeographic boundary between the western and eastern Mediterranean, the first findings of P. segnis in the westernmost part of Sicily might represent a critical step in the likely species’ expansion through the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea towards the western Mediterranean, facilitated by more favourable ecological factors due to climate change.