FIDDLER CRABS

               

Fiddler crabs are intertidal animals that live in mangrove forests, tidal creeks, sandbars, mudflats or, occasionally, stone or b
can occur in huge numbers, with thousands of individuals living in small, adjacent territories. Males and females live interm
individual has its own burrow and a small area of surface sediment around it. The burrow is extremely important. It is a refu
during low tide it is a source of water for keeping the gills wet, it is an escape from predators, it is the site of mating and inc
around the burrow is used for feeding and courting.

Males have a single enlarged claw, while females have two small feeding claws. Fiddlers feed by scraping the surface sedim
claws, transferring it to the mouth where the complex mouthparts sift out the organic matter. They then spit out a small pelle
These feeling pellets cover the mudflat by the end of the low tide period. Because males have only one small, feeding claw,
of the females. They therefore have to spend about double the time feeding.

Typical Fiddler crab social system

Males wave their enlarged claw to attract females for mating. When a female is ready to mate (i.e. she has ripe ovaries), she
burrow and wanders through the population of waving males. She visits several males before selecting a mate (up to 24). A
approach to the male, he then darts into his burrow, the female follows him in, spends a few seconds underground and then r
wandering. When the female accepts the male as a mate, she does not reappear, but rather the male emerges about 5 minutes
sand to plug the burrow entrance. He plugs it from the inside, sealing him and the female underground. Mating occurs in the
the burrow and the following day, the male emerges. He reseals the burrow entrance with the female underground. The male
and wanders around to find an empty burrow or to fight another male for its burrow. The female remains underground for th
while she incubates her eggs. She does not emerge to feed during this time.

Females time mating so that egg release coincides with a Spring tide. The eggs are released during a nocturnal high spring ti
swimming larvae are washed far out to sea. They develop out there for several weeks and then wash into shore. They settle o
when they detect the odour of adult crabs of their own species. They undergo a final moult to become minute little crabs, an
on the mudflats.

Fiddlers as a study species

Fiddlers are very active during diurnal low tides. They are constantly busy waving, fighting, mating, feeding or cleaning up
Because they occur in such high numbers, data collection is extremely simple. They are easy to watch, either with binocular
You can catch and mark them with little effort, and they can be ‘caged’ on the mudflat by surrounding them with mesh walls
sediment. They are the ideal animals for manipulative experimental work.

Females breed every month (two weeks of incubation, two weeks of feeding) and males are ready to mate virtually every da
mating data with ease. Fighting is also common between males and between females. Males very rarely fight females or stea
females, although I have no idea why not.

The best part about working on fiddler crabs is that you get to spend the field season in a pleasant tropical environment, sitti
getting so much data you feel positively smug. Also, you are constrained by the tides, so you can only collect data for a max
day. Bummer!

I can only think of one disadvantage to studying fiddlers. You cannot follow consecutive generations or measure the success
get washed out to sea and may reappear at any of the surrounding mudflats depending on the currents (this means that popul
genetically isolated). You can easily catch the offspring as they are released, but they are difficult to rear in the lab.
There are about 100 species of fiddler crabs worldwide. They all belong to the genus Uca, family Ocypodidae, order Decapo
approximately 20 species in Australia, 11 of which are endemic. Nine species occur in the Darwin area:

Uca capricornis
Uca elegans
Uca flammula
Uca signata
Uca hirsutimanus
Uca seismella
Uca polita
Uca dampieri
Uca mjoebergi

We have worked mainly on Uca mjoebergi, Uca capricornis and Uca dampieri. We are all behavioural
study the mating, fighting, signalling and ecology of the fiddlers in their natural environment. This invo
observational and experimental work. Four examples of the type of work we do are:

THE MATE CHOICE PROCESS

We am particularly interested in the process of mate selection. In many animal species it has been show
strong, inherent mating preferences. These can be demonstrated by giving females a simple choice betw
signals under controlled laboratory conditions. Under natural conditions, however, the process of mate
complex. There are many constraints that could prohibit females from expressing their preferences. The
temporal or energetic constraints on free choice. Predation risk or variation in the quality of resources th
affect their final choice. Similarly, variation in the social environment, such as male-male competition,
phenotypic variation or operational sex ratios could influence their selection of mates. Much of the crab
has focused on the biotic and abiotic factors that determine the level at which females are able to expres
mating preferences.

We have recently teamed up with Stephen Sims who has built us robotic crabs. This means we can now
choice experiments in which we offer a female a choice between two robotic crabs that differ in wave r
timing, claw colour or any other factor we wish to manipulate. This has opened up a whole range of det
projects that look at exactly what it is that females are selecting.

DISHONEST SIGNALLING
In animal communication it is generally true that the signals animals use convey accurate and honest in
Individuals of some species, however, produce deceptive signals that provide inaccurate information. T
allow the signaller to attract mates or repel competitors when it would be incapable of doing so were it
Some fiddler crabs appear to signal deceptively. Fiddlers can autotomise their large claw and, through a
regenerate a new one. In most fiddler species, the regenerated claw is identical to the original. In some s
the regenerated claw is clearly different. It lacks teeth, has a smaller muscle mass and more delicate fing
apparently quickly regenerate their claw to the same overall length as the original, but produce a cheape
less effective as a weapon but is lighter and therefore more easily waved. The regenerated claw appears
effective visual bluff of fighting ability and may actually be preferred by mate searching females. I am
investigating this apparent case of cheating.

FIGHTING NEIGHBOURS AND STRANGERS

Male fiddlers use their enlarged claws in fights. Territory owners fight approaching strangers that try to
territories. They also fight neighbours to negotiate and demarcate territory boundaries. Strangers pose a
neighbours because losing a fight with a stranger means losing the entire territory whereas losing a figh
results in a reduction in territory size. In other animals, fights with both strangers and neighbours are th
strength with the stronger male most likely to win. Oddly, in fiddler crabs, this does not appear to be the
between neighbours do not appear to be settled by brute force. Instead, it appears that residents use aggr
punishment against encroaching neighbours. The fight itself inflicts time and energy costs on the neighb
consistently engaging the neighbour in a fight each time it encroaches, residents may decrease the likeli
neighbour returning to the disputed area. If this is true, then fights between neighbours and those betwe
be fundamentally different interactions. While strangers might fight to win, neighbours may not be tryin
encroacher but rather to ‘nag’ it into respecting the border between them.

Fiddlers are amazing little animals. They are fun to watch, easy to study and they do really intersting th
that ALL biologists don't study them. They are much better than birds or mammals or fish or snakes.