What are fiddler crabs?
Fiddler crabs belong to the genus Uca. They are members of the ocypodid family of brachyuran crabs, the most recent marine animals to have invaded land.They spend the first part of their life as aquatic plankton and only settle in the intertidal zone after their last larval moult. Adults live in burrows on intertidal mud- and sand-flats within dense, mixedage, mixed-sex and mixedspecies colonies (Figure 1).
Each adult defends his or her own burrow and a small area around it. They are active on the surface during low tide, feeding on algae, bacteria and detritus in the topsoil. It is thought that fiddler crabs can live for up to seven years and adults of the largest species can reach a body size of about 5 cm. The crabs grow by moulting which, under favourable conditions, they do about every eight weeks.
What are fiddler crabs? Fiddler crabs belong to the genus Uca. They are members of the ocypodid family of brachyuran crabs, the most recent marine animals to have invaded land.They spend the first part of their life as aquatic plankton and only settle in the intertidal zone after their last larval moult. Adults live in burrows on intertidal mud- and sand-flats within dense, mixedage, mixed-sex and mixedspecies colonies (Figure 1). Each adult defends his or her own burrow and a small area around it. They are active on the surface during low tide, feeding on algae, bacteria and detritus in the topsoil. It is thought that fiddler crabs can live for up to seven years and adults of the largest species can reach a body size of about 5 cm. The crabs grow by moulting which, under favourable conditions, they do about every eight weeks.
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