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Claws and claw waving attract both sexes in the dotillid crab Ilyoplax pusilla

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Abstract

During the breeding season, courting males of many ocypodoids (famously, fiddler crabs) perform claw-waving displays, in which they rhythmically raise, often extend, and lower their chelipeds when they are near their burrows. This conspicuous display sometimes attracts wandering (burrow-less) sexually receptive females to males’ burrows where the crabs mate. However, since most of the claw waving is not directed to a particular receiver, the display may also attract males and unreceptive females that are searching for new burrows, not mates. We conducted two types of choice experiment using claw models to examine the preferences of wandering males and females in the dotillid crab Ilyoplax pusilla: (1) between burrows with and without static claw models, (2) between waving and static claw models set up 10 cm apart (for only males). More crabs of both sexes ran to the burrows with claw models, and more males preferred the waving claw model. Like the structures some courting male fiddler crabs build, male claws and the claw waving of I. pusilla may reveal to unintended receivers the locations of burrows that these crabs can use temporarily as refuges.

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Acknowledgments

This work is partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 19K06841 to YH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kumamoto University, Kurokami, Kumamoto, 860-8555, Japan

    Naoto Sakugawa

  2. Faculty of Engineering, Kumamoto University, Kurokami, Kumamoto, 860-8555, Japan

    Keiji Kasamura

  3. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa-Ancón, 0843-03092, Panamá

    John H. Christy

  4. Aitsu Marine Station, Center for Water Cycle, Marine Environment, and Disaster Management, Kumamoto University, Matsushima, Kami-Amakusa, Kumamoto, 861-6102, Japan

    Yasuhisa Henmi

Authors
  1. Naoto Sakugawa
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  2. Keiji Kasamura
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  3. John H. Christy
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  4. Yasuhisa Henmi
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Correspondence to Yasuhisa Henmi.

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Sakugawa, N., Kasamura, K., Christy, J.H. et al. Claws and claw waving attract both sexes in the dotillid crab Ilyoplax pusilla. J Ethol 39, 199–203 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-021-00692-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-021-00692-4

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