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Courtship herding in the fiddler crab Uca elegans

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Abstract

Male and female animals are not always complicit during reproduction, giving rise to coercion. One example of a system that is assumed to involve sexual coercion is the mate herding behaviour of fiddler crabs: males push females towards the home burrow with the goal of forcing copulation at the burrow entrance. We recorded and analysed in detail the courtship behaviour of a North Australian species of fiddler crab Uca elegans. Courtship was composed of four main phases: broadcast waving, outward run, herding and at burrow display. During interactions males produced claw-waving displays which were directed posteriorly towards the female and which varied in timing and structure depending on the courtship phase. We suggest that courtship herding in U. elegans is driven primarily by mate choice for the following reasons, (1) females can evade herding, (2) no other reproductive strategies were observed, (3) males broadcast their presence and accompany courtship with conspicuous claw waves, and (4) the behaviour ends with the female leading the male into the home burrow. As an alternative function for herding in U. elegans we suggest that the behaviour represents a form of courtship guiding, in which males direct complicit females to the correct home burrow.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Jochen Zeil for his help and advice, Pat Backwell and Tanya Detto for their support in the field, the North Australian Research Unit for hosting fieldwork, the RSBS workshop team for the custom-made equipment and Norbert Boeddeker for helpful advice. Funding was provided for MJH from a Research School of Biological Sciences postgraduate award and the ANU DVC for Research Support Fund for Fieldwork. We would also like to acknowledge partial support from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science. The experiments comply with the “Principles of animal care”, publication No. 86–23, revised 1985 of the National Institute of Health, and with the current laws of the country in which the experiments were performed.

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  1. ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science and Centre for Visual Sciences, Research School of Biological Sciences, The Australian National University, Bldg 46, Canberra, ACT, 2600, Australia

    Martin J. How & Jan M. Hemmi

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  1. Martin J. How
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  2. Jan M. Hemmi
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Correspondence to Martin J. How.

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How, M.J., Hemmi, J.M. Courtship herding in the fiddler crab Uca elegans . J Comp Physiol A 194, 1053–1061 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-008-0376-5

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