Austruca perplexa

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Austruca perplexa
Fiddler Crab - Australia.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Pleocyemata
Infraorder: Brachyura
Family: Ocypodidae
Subfamily: Gelasiminae
Tribe: Gelasimni
Genus: Austruca
Species:
A. perplexa
Binomial name
Austruca perplexa
Synonyms
  • Gelasimus perplexusH. Milne-Edwards, 1837
  • Uca annulipes var. albimanaH. Milne-Edwards, 1852
  • Uca lactea perplexa(H. Milne-Edwards, 1837)
  • Uca perplexa(H. Milne-Edwards, 1837)
Male lemon-yellow clawed fiddler crab (Austruca perplexa), waving Uca perplexa male waving.gif
Male lemon-yellow clawed fiddler crab (Austruca perplexa), waving

Austruca perplexa is a species of fiddler crab. It is found from the Ryukyu Islands, Japan to India, throughout the Malay Archipelago, along eastern Australian coasts from Queensland to New South Wales, and in various Pacific islands, including Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu. [2] [3]

Austruca perplexa was formerly in the genus Uca , but in 2016 it was placed in the genus Austruca , a former subgenus of Uca. [4] [5] [6]

As in other fiddler crabs, the male has a greatly enlarged claw, which is used for signalling. The higher the claw is waved by the male, the greater his chance of attracting a female; the size of the claw is therefore subject to sexual selection. [7] Furthermore, larger male fiddler crabs wave their claws at a faster rate than smaller fiddler crabs to attract larger females. Larger females are more desirable because they produce more eggs than smaller females. [8]

Austruca perplexa is usually found on sandy substrates near river mouths or on sheltered beaches in the mid-intertidal zone, usually near mangroves. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiddler crab</span> Genus of crabs

The fiddler crab or calling crab may be any of more than one hundred species of semiterrestrial marine crabs in the family Ocypodidae, well known for their sexually dimorphic claws; the males' major claw is much larger than the minor claw, while the females' claws are both the same size. A smaller number of ghost crab and mangrove crab species are also found in the family Ocypodidae. This entire group is composed of small crabs, the largest being slightly over two inches (5 cm) across. Fiddler crabs are found along sea beaches and brackish intertidal mud flats, lagoons, swamps, and various other types of brackish or salt-water wetlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocypodidae</span> Family of crabs

The Ocypodidae are a family of semiterrestrial crabs that includes the ghost crabs and fiddler crabs. They are found on tropical and temperate shorelines around the world.

<i>Leptuca pugilator</i> Species of crab

Leptuca pugilator, the sand fiddler crab, Atlantic sand fiddler crab, or Calico fiddler, is a species of fiddler crab that is found from Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico. It lives in burrows in coastal and estuarine mud-flats, and can be extremely abundant. It can be differentiated from the morphologically similar Minuca pugnax and Minuca minax by the smoothness of the inside of its claws. One claw is larger than the other, and can be much larger than the crab's body, at up to 41 mm (1.6 in) long.

<i>Minuca pugnax</i> Species of crab

Minuca pugnax, commonly known as the Atlantic marsh fiddler crab, is a species of fiddler crab that lives on north-western shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

<i>Austruca mjoebergi</i> Species of crab

Austruca mjoebergi is a species of fiddler crab discovered by and named after the Swedish zoologist Eric Mjöberg (1882–1938), member of a Swedish scientific expedition to Australia in the early 1900s.

<i>Heloecius</i> Genus of crabs

Heloecius cordiformis is a species of semiterrestrial crab found in mangrove swamps and mudflats along the east coast of Australia. Adults are around 25 mm (1 in) wide, with males being larger and having larger and more conspicuously coloured claws. The males wave their claws to communicate with other crabs, giving them their common name of semaphore crab. They can breathe both in air and under water, and feed at low tide on detritus in the sediment. H. cordiformis is the only species in the genus Heloecius and the family Heloeciidae.

<i>Gelasimus vocans</i> Species of crab

Gelasimus vocans is a species of fiddler crab. It is found across the Indo-Pacific from the Red Sea, Zanzibar and Madagascar to Indonesia and the central Pacific Ocean. It lives in burrows up to 50 centimetres (20 in) deep. Several forms of G. vocans have been recognised, with their authors often granting them the taxonomic rank of full species or subspecies.

<i>Austruca annulipes</i> Species of crab

Austruca annulipes is a species of fiddler crab found along the coastline from South Africa to Somalia, Madagascar, India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

<i>Minuca minax</i> Species of crab

Minuca minax, commonly known as the red‐jointed fiddler crab or brackish-water fiddler crab, is a species of fiddler crab that is found in the United States from Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico. It is one of the most common macroinvertebrates in salt marshes in these states. It prefers areas of lower salinity than other fiddler crabs, and can be found in great numbers along the banks of tidal streams, even at distances greater than 50 km (31 mi) from the sea.

<i>Tubuca urvillei</i> Species of crab

Tubuca urvillei is a species of fiddler crab. It is found in the Southeastern Africa from southern Somalia to the South Africa and Madagascar.

<i>Tubuca flammula</i> Species of crab

Tubuca flammula, commonly known as the flame-backed fiddler crab is a species of fiddler crab that is found in the northwest of Western Australia, the northern part of the Northern Territory and the western half of Papua New Guinea

<i>Minuca longisignalis</i> Species of crustacean

Minuca longisignalis, the longwave gulf fiddler, is a species of American broad-front fiddler crab in the family Ocypodidae.

<i>Austruca</i> Genus of crabs

Austruca is a genus of indo-west Pacific fiddler crabs in the family Ocypodidae. There are about 13 described species in this genus.

Gelasiminae is a subfamily that pertains to nine out of the eleven fiddler crab genera within the family Ocypodidae.

<i>Leptuca panacea</i> Species of crab

Leptuca panacea, commonly known as the Gulf sand fiddler crab or the Panacea sand fiddler, is a species of fiddler crab native to coastal habitats along the Gulf of Mexico from northwestern Florida to Mexico.

Leptuca speciosa, commonly known as the brilliant fiddler crab or the longfinger fiddler crab, is a species of fiddler crab native to the southern United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Leptuca batuenta, commonly known as the beating fiddler crab, is a species of fiddler crab native to the tropical eastern Pacific, from El Salvador to northern Peru.

Leptuca saltitanta, commonly known as the energetic fiddler crab, is a species of fiddler crab native to the eastern Pacific coasts, from El Salvador in Central America to Colombia in South America.

<i>Tubuca polita</i> Fiddler crab, Tubuca polita

Tubuca polita, commonly known as the polished fiddler crab. or pink-clawed fiddler crab is a species of fiddler crab that is found in the northern part of Australia including the Torres Strait Islands

<i>Tubuca coarctata</i> Species of fiddler crab

Tubuca coarctata is a species of fiddler crab found in the western Pacific ocean, including Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea and Australia. The common name of these crabs is either the compressed fiddler crab, or the orange-clawed fiddler crab,. They are found on tidal mud flats adjacent mangroves and muddy tidal creek and river banks.

References

  1. Peter K. L. Ng; Danièle Guinot & Peter J. F. Davie (2008). "Systema Brachyurorum: Part I. An annotated checklist of extant Brachyuran crabs of the world" (PDF). Raffles Bulletin of Zoology . 17: 1–286. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-06. Retrieved 2010-01-16.
  2. "Species Uca perplexa (H. Milne Edwards, 1852)". Australian Faunal Directory . Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. October 9, 2008.
  3. "Uca perplexa". Crabs of Japan. Marine Species Identification Portal.
  4. Shih, Hsi-Te; Ng, Peter K. L.; Davie, Peter J. F.; Schubart, Christoph D.; et al. (2016). "Systematics of the family Ocypodidae Rafinesque, 1815 (Crustacea: Brachyura), based on phylogenetic relationships, with a reorganization of subfamily rankings and a review of the taxonomic status of Uca Leach, 1814, sensu lato and its subgenera". The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 64.
  5. Rosenberg, Michael S. (2019). "A fresh look at the biodiversity lexicon for fiddler crabs (Decapoda: Brachyura: Ocypodidae). Part 1: Taxonomy". Journal of Crustacean Biology. 39 (6).
  6. "WoRMS taxon details, Austruca mjoebergi (Rathbun, 1924)". World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2020-11-16.
  7. Minoru Murai; Patricia R. Y. Backwell & Michael D. Jennions (2009). "The cost of reliable signaling: experimental evidence for predictable variation among males in a cost-benefit trade-off between sexually selected traits". Evolution . 63 (9): 2363–2371. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00726.x . PMID   19453725.
  8. Tina, Fahmida Wazed; Muramatsu, Daisuke (October 2019). Bertram, Susan (ed.). "Size‐dependent mating preference of the male fiddler crab Austruca perplexa". Ethology. 126 (1): 68–75. doi:10.1111/eth.12961. ISSN   0179-1613.
  9. "Queensland Coast: Guide to Fiddler Crabs of Queensland". 4 April 2015.