Abstract
In the fiddler crabs Uca saltitanta and Uca perplexa, males attract mates by waving their enlarged claws. We show that in both species waving is closely synchronised between neighbouring males in clusters, both in the presence of mate-searching females and in their absence. Wandering females visit those males in the cluster that produce more waves at faster wave rates. In U. perplexa, they also selectively visit those males that produce the greatest number of leading waves. Synchronous waving may be the result of a precedence effect causing male competition to produce leading signals.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the staff of the Sesoko Research Station for their support and assistance. The work was funded by a JSPS fellowship (PRYB) and a University of the Ryukyus Visiting Scientist award (MDJ and KW). The experiments comply with the current laws of Japan, Australia and the Republic of Panama.
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Communicated by R. Oliveira
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Backwell, P., Jennions, M., Wada, K. et al. Synchronous waving in two species of fiddler crabs. acta ethol 9, 22–25 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-005-0009-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-005-0009-8